The Gem Squad
by Mein Kapatin
Summary: Neil was the newest member of Delta Squad, who was trusted with the task of getting into a Russian and Chinese controlled facility and to put an end to whatever they were doing... Now they are floating in a cold, airless void hoping not to die. Hopefully they will be able to get the message back to command and explain why they shouldn't nuke the desert- it's end of the world.
1. Chapter 1- A reasonable sense of doom

**A/N- For those of you unfortunate enough to read the first iteration of this story, I am very sorry... Oops..**

 **I have re-written the entire first chapter to be more enjoyable, readable (although I may still need to do some minor grammatical/spelling checks, if you see any, let me know and I'll sort them out) and to have a sense of continuity.**

 **The gist of it is, I made it again but properly this time... If you made the mistake of reading it first, sorry, here, have a better version of the chapter with a different conclusion- it's a bit better this time...**

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 **Chapter 1- A not Fully Unwarranted Sense of Doom**

 **Washington State- Local Time- 16:00 Hours- 14 Hours before the Mission**

Neil was the newest squad member, replacing the last support guy for the 4 man squad; aptly named Delta Squad, when in combat. But for now they were just 3 regular visitors and 1 new guy, sat at a quiet bar enjoying some cool refreshments in the heat of the summer sun.

The 4 man squad consisted of an almost veteran- Sargent Franklin Connors- the team medic. He was aged 42 years and had black, military cut hair and, while was the only gentleman of a coloured persuasion in the squad, he was also the only gentleman. With the rank of squad sergeant and leader of the small team his job was to bring his soldiers home safely, taking preference of medical equipment over additional munitions into battle.

Next was the squad engineer, the vehicle specialist- Private First class Kyle Greene. He was a very shrewd man, preferring to stay in his garage in his time away from the field and preferring to stay in a tank when in the field. He was the sort of man to either trust you so much he would follow you to hell and back or he would trust you with a frag grenade without the pin. The man was aged 27 years, white, short brown hair that was slightly longer than the military would have permitted if he didn't chase off the officer with a blow torch every time they tried to tell him otherwise.

Now the squad recon officer and second in command- Specialist Sam Davis. Another white man, although his mother was Chinese, he was 31 years old and had black hair, more hair than Kyle but he kept it hidden beneath a rag balaclava and fishing hat when on duty. He preferred to keep things simple and he enjoyed simple things, like blowing a hostile's head into pulp with the single pull of the trigger. He had history and would have been a rank ahead of the squad leader if it wasn't for the one time he killed an enemy combatant with an SUAV recon drone; which only resulted in him being reprimanded, though he was permitted to stay on as the squad recon. He did prefer the SUAV over his newly designated MAV- a more stable helicopter equivalent to the throw-plane style drone he previously used. Needless to say, he is a polar opposite of the squad engineer and as such, they never really connected. Of course with time they grew to trust each other more so but still just couldn't find common ground.

And finally the new guy- Private Neil Vickers. Neil was completely new, fresh out of the training camp and yet to fight in combat or even go out into the field- Again, a white man with military cut, although now only just starting to grow again, brown hair and was aged 22 years. His role in the team was to provide support. He knew he would be getting to know the men around him very well over the coming months and he was glad for this, to have people he could call good friends, possibly even brothers. Despite this none of them knew what hell they were about to find themselves in.

 **13:24 Hours before the mission**

"And then, Sam here is just clawing at the walls as our helicopter goes down, screeching like a wild cat-"Said Kyle, laughing with a wide grin. Franklin could be seen with a smile stretched across his face; he knew this story all too well.

Sam interrupted Kyle in a feeble attempt to change the direction and take control.

"Hey that's not fair, it's not like you were any better when you were stupid enough to drive us right over an AT mine and had to get out for repairs… I remember you didn't want to get out so badly you kept on trying to get us to do your job!"

Sam almost felt triumphant as Kyle was stopped from his story. "At least when I got out I didn't piss myself."

To that Franklin stood in the background, gathering more drinks and called out "OH Burrrn!"

Sam tried to defend himself "It had been 14 hours since I had been to the bathroom and you all know I get claustrophobic in helicopters when the doors are shut."

"Then I guess you shoulda' used the bathroom before we took off." Kyle replied.

"I had been awake non-stop for 30 hours and I needed sleep, I take one chance for a break and instead of giving me the chance to nap and when I get up it's not 'Oh, by the way I just wanted to say thanks for making sure we could sleep in this war zone under your wise and safe gaze, you're a real credit to the team!' instead it's 'Damn, you look like shit… Get in the chopper…"

Sam mimicked them with 'little voices' when quoting his squad mates.

After this the two of them looked each other in the eyes, staring intently. For a moment Neil thought they were going to flip the table and have a fight before they both started heartily laughing.

It was at this moment that their whole ordeal had begun. Franklin walked up to the table, holding drinks in his hands before setting them on the table.

The drinks where non-alcoholic.

"You know guys, I was just on the phone to the CO and he said some very interesting things."

Neil didn't know what this meant. For all he knew anything could have happened from 'we are having a celebration party' to 'World War 3 just started' so Neil just sat in his chair and waited for Franklin to drop the dramatic pause.

"…And it turns out, we are setting off for the Saharan desert in 3 hours… So drink up, and call your loved ones, because things are about to get mighty sticky…"

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 **Washington State- McChord Air Force Base- 10:21 Hours before the Mission**

Neil took a taxi to the front of the air base and reported to his Commanding Officer, Captain Perrick.

Captain Perrick had a long history with the squad and it was his influence that grave the squad a replacement so soon after losing their previous support squaddie. He trusted them, despite their attitude to certain situations being somewhat carefree and their frequent disregard for military protocol.

His reason was because they never failed to get results.

Of course all previous ops had been done with their, now retired support squaddie and now they had a heap of fresh meat in his place. This was quite the initiation for Neil.

"Private Neil Vickers, Delta squad, reporting in." He said with a salute, now changed into his military fatigues.

"At ease" Said Captain Perrick "You are to join your squad mates in bunker 7 and wait there for further instructions.

"Sir, yes sir."

"Dismissed."

Looking around at the Air Force base, he saw large convoys of vehicles moving around, some people had grave looks on their faces and others seemed to be content with their current situation; being standing around and talking about the rumours they heard, although things where starting to look increasingly grave as he neared Bunker 7, the noise of vehicular action seemed to drift away into the distance. Stepping up to the two privates standing guard at the door, Neil gave a salute and they saluted back, one opening the door for him to step through.

There were stairs going downward into the earth went down for about 3 stories before it opened into what was essentially a standard barracks, about half the number of beds and the rest taken up by rations, water, bathroom facilities and other random assortments of equipment, including weapons and uniforms.

Inside the rest of the squad was already present, throwing what was presumed to be Sam's hat between the two others, playing 'piggie in the middle' with him.

At Neil's entrance, the two stopped, half expecting a commanding officer to step through. Sam took his chance to snatch back his hat and finish putting on his desert gear.

Neil spoke first "Hey guys, what's going on? Any ideas or are they keeping us in the dark?"

Franklin replied for the squad "I don't think any of us are gonna be finding out what's happening until we are already in the thick of it, so as I see it, it would be best to just get ready. Your new uniform is on your pile."

His 'pile' had a variety of things to marvel at, for one there was a uniform that consisted of a standard military under layer and a large flak jacket that also had pockets, already stuffed with spare ammunition, his over shirt had longer sleeves that had a few pull buttons, allowing the sleeves to be pulled right back. He also had some camouflaged gloves with rubber gripping pads on the palm sides. There were also camouflaged cargo pants with many more pockets, this time filled with tools, wire cutters, pliers, various lengths of string etc.

Finishing with his boots, standard desert grade- designed to help displace sand without giving him giant feet and to keep sand out, while letting air in to help cool his feet.

Having put on all of the gear, he made his way to the next heap where two guns and a collection of other objects awaited him.

The main piece was a U-100 MK5- a light machine gun, magazine fed that came with a strange assortment of components, a bi-pod was expected but the additions of a suppressor and a short range red-dot sight with a magnification lens that could be flicked into position in front of the red-dot was something different, like the higher-ups where expecting him to be in a stealthy, long and short range environment.

Next was a standard issue M9 pistol, the device had a small glowing ring around the main sights and also had a small laser sight/flash light combo and suppressor on the end of the barrel. This seemed a little much for starters but he thought it was probably about as good as things were going to get- things would only get heavier.

Next up, he had a single hand grenade, which he put into one of his few empty pockets. Now there was a small pocket sized tablet and what looked like a foldable mortar tube with a small camera attached to it. This was going to be difficult, he put his M9 into its holster on his right hip and slung the machine gun over his shoulder on its strap. Then he had to put the mortar on its strap, on his other shoulder. Finally, the last two objects, at least they didn't look that heavy.

He saw a few small blocks of C4 explosive and a detonator and finally, a helmet and headset. The helmet was a large piece, with many straps and parts to it, including a set of shatter resistant goggles that were also connected to his headset radio, which he wore under his helmet. Upon putting the goggles on, he noticed that they presented small blue chevrons above his squad mate's headsets and as he moved his head, they also moved in real time. There was also a small map in the bottom right corner of his vision. This was awfully high tech for his first mission.

Despite the problem arising from his mighty haul of war-ready goodies, he knew the real challenge was going to be getting it all up the stairs into the open.

The others were now fully equipped with the Kyle, the team engineer holding an 870 MCS pump-action shotgun, which he held closely- it had many scratches and scars across its body which lead Neil to believe that he had taken that gun to many more places that he would have thought. Kyle wore a similar get up, although less ammunition in his pouches, more things like wire cutters, a screw driver and even a portable blow torch.

His helmet was one of the most defining differences in their uniforms, his having far less ballistic protection, being only a camo baseball cap and a set of military radio headphones. Te wore sunglasses that where a similar size to Neil's goggles although they lacked any yellow tinting like Neil's. He also had a single grenade and held a Compact 45. Handgun on his hip, with only a suppressor and flash light attached to it. The biggest piece that made Neil almost feel just as bad for him as he felt was the large SMAW rocket launcher slung over his back.

The recon, Sam had a JNG-90 sniper rifle with a bi-pod much like his own, although Sam also had a range finder and a variable zoomed 7X to 14X scope and a long suppressor protruded from the end of the barrel. The gun looked mean and that was probably why he liked it, he also liked the sound it made, a beefy and loud crack could be heard from miles around every time this thing fired. Sam also had a large device named a PLD, which was a range finder, laser designator and set of thermal binoculars all in one.

He also held to his back, a remote controlled MAV drone, a small helicopter style of device that, while was mostly meant for spotting targets, was also capable of firing small electronic darts that could short out enemy equipment. His main distinction in uniform being that he had a rag-scarf that covered his face and his fishing hat, which left all but his eyes covered. On his hip lay a 44. Magnum with a 3.4X scope and a longer barrel than was standard, it's chrome colour scheme was not present but rather a dulled grey was there in its place; the gun had clearly had its fair share of use.

Lastly Franklin was stood, appearing to be the most officially dressed one of the group, his gear had a fair mix of ammunition, bandages and a pair of chrome scissors that glistened brightly in contrast to the rest of his uniform, being largely in black and grey colours, with dusty tones that helped to blend it into the sandy colour scheme for the mission.

Franklin held a SCAR-H heavy assault rifle, having an M26 under-barrel shotgun attached under his gun. The sights on it where similar to Neil's in that it was a short range holographic scope but it had a magnifier placed in front of it. It also had a suppressor. He had a smaller revolver than Sam, his one being all black with a shorter barrel. It had no discernible attachments on it to make it seem particularly modified beyond a laser/light combo under the barrel. On his back, he carried a first aid pack, complete with a small defibrillator. He looked to be carrying the least of the squad and so instead, carried everyone else's sleeping gear and their changes of socks.

His helmet was not quite as large as Neil's but it did have black goggles that Neil felt himself staring into, feeling almost like the abyss would stare into him if he turned away, which Franklin was doing, making a more sudden movement to get his attention and snap him back to reality.

"Gentlemen, it's good to see you all here today." Said Captain Perrick, stepping into the bunker. "We have a very peculiar situation down in the Saharan desert, you 4 and you 4 alone are tasked with taking care of it, you will take a transport jet out to our outpost there immediately before briefing on the specifics of your mission, in flight."

Franklin spoke for the squad in an official tone. "Yes sir."

And that was all that was needed to be said. Now it was a matter of getting the equipment up the 3 storey stair case and hoping that they could make it to the transport.

Unfortunately, though the Captain gestured for them to follow, he took his time with the steps and made slow progress, forcing them to take time with each step, savouring the pain as they went one step closer to a cosy 10 hour flight.

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 **Above the Saharan Desert- 11:00 local time**

 **-00:00 until the mission-**

Captain Perrick spoke to the squad on a screen present in the cargo hold of the transport craft. The 4 of them where the only soldiers equipped for combat on the entire craft, no other soldiers could be seen beyond a few maintenance crew checking that the tanks and Jeeps where still securely fastened to the deck of the plane.

"Gentlemen, you are all going to be very busy over the next week. Your primary objective is to investigate potential Russian and Chinese activity in the area below you, we expect they are working together to develop a new super weapon and we believe they are testing this weapon in the desert, as shown by the satellite images taken just 2 days ago."

Then the screen changed and a series of satellite photos of a large compound appeared in his place, Perrick continued to talk. "Here we see a very large amount of construction activity and while we would just assume that it was something different, it's that secrecy that makes us suspicious. They have applied thermal camouflage, making their activities considerably harder to detect at night. Now every we can't even see the compound by satellite."

"So what do you want us to do exactly? Attack them? Take a few holiday photos? Sneak in?" Said Kyle, growing tired from prolonged time wasting. While he appreciated being in an air-conditioned transport vehicle, it was just a little too loud to let him actually rest and he felt very sleep deprived.

"What we want you to do is to get in. Simple as that, I don't care how loud or quietly you have to be when you do it, just get it done. This is a free-fire zone, it belongs to no one and it doesn't matter what it takes, just get in, find something incriminating and record it. Should you find yourselves captured by the enemy, you are not to reveal your ties with the US military, this operation doesn't exist. If either country starts asking about you and we find you failed, there will be no helping the damned."

"You have 7 days to complete your objective, when you are done with the facility, you will take the beginning of your battle recordings as ID for allied soldiers, travel directly east from the enemy compound and after 3 days drive, you will make radio contact with the British outpost named Bluestone 42 and they will refer you to me. Should you fail to make radio contact by the specified time, we will be forced to assume the worst and wipe the facility off the face of the desert. Any questions?"

Franklin looked to his team. Kyle and Sam saw that this was a sketchy, off-the-books kind of mission and they knew this was their field, their area of expertise. Neil was less roguishly confident than the other two and hoped that he would be able to draw enough courage from his squad mates.

"No sir."

"Then best of luck to you. Begin your battle recordings."

The four soldiers pushed a button on the sides of their helmets/headsets and a small *beep beep* could be head in their headsets and Neil saw in the upper right corner of his goggles a small repeatedly glowing on/off red light. Presumably this was the same experience for the others.

"This is Captain Perrick of McChord USAFB, Washington State. Any and all allied forces that receive these recordings are to immediately report this to their commanding officers, who will bring this about to myself."

With that the screen cut to black and the transmission was over. A technician from the cockpit came down to the squad and handed Franklin a piece of paper; he was sure to keep it at the just the right angle that he could still read it but that his camera could not. The paper note read-

 _So sorry we couldn't give you a map or GPS, can't afford to let the enemy know this is a US operation, the flags have been removed from your uniforms and the vehicles present here for a reason_

 _At least you can have a compass_

 _If you just get into the four man Jeep at the end of the ramp, it's already got a parachute attached and I can just open the ramp and let you go._

 _When you land, travel for 2 miles with a bearing of 190_ _O_ _and continue until you reach a large dustbowl- then move toward the north end of the dustbowl and there will be a cave with the following supplies:_

 _Food  
Water  
Fuel  
Ammunition_

 _Travel directly south to find the RUS/CHI site._

 _from there travel directly East and on the third day of driving, use the on board radio to find Bluestone 42, show them the recordings and get home safe_

 _Good luck_

This information was quickly digested before being handed to Sam, the man on navigation in the front passenger seat.

The vehicle rolled out of the end of the plane and began to fall, the parachute opened and pulled the vehicle out of a nose dive before gently allowing them to fall at an almost comforting rate. From this height the dustbowl in the note could be clearly seen in the distance, although it was a very large area, there was no sign of the Russian/Chinese facility on the horizon.

Driving in the sun and sand was enjoyable for the first few minutes but it quickly grew into a boring and sweaty ordeal. The cave den was a godsend, providing a nice supply of shade and water. Filling up their camelbacks with fresh water and having one last MRE before they began their 4 man assault. They waited until nightfall. Yes they would be more visible on thermal but they would be far less visible on long range and it was long range that they could not account for, being as their sniper could not see a small scope glint in the far distance while in a moving vehicle bumping around in the desert through the heat haze.

Nightfall came and they set about their work. When they got to the coordinates, they began to deviate, opting not to charge down the enemy's front door. Sam picked out that there was no light from the supposed compound reaching up into the sky. Or rather there did not appear to be any compound at all, just an old, weathered petrol station, no lights shone out into the sand, there wasn't even glass in the windows.

Pulling up while staying suspicious, they collectively got out of the Jeep and cautiously, made their way into the store part of the stop to find no isles, no desks nothing but a spiral stairwell. They made their way carefully down it and found that there was much more to this place than they were led to believe. A long corridor with lights at the far end illuminating a massive metal blast door.

They felt like there where eyes in the darkness, cameras had to be somewhere, this wasn't exactly a shed in the desert, this was a big deal.

Just as Kyle went to open the great door, Sam having a minor anxiety attack in the confined space began to breathe rapidly and shallowly. He was the first to pass out. Then Neil felt unsteady, his head was spinning and Franklin made the connection; they were being gassed. Before Franklin knew it he grew light headed and everything became heavy and tiring. He tried to turn to Kyle but he was already out cold, slumped against the door, which now swung open to many foreign weapons trained on their bodies. The last things that Neil could hear was heavy breathing through filtered masks and the cocking of assault rifles before he finally fell to the demand for rest. Franklin would have tried to hold his gun to the foreign troops but could not manage it, he was quickly bashed across the face with the butt of an enemy rifle and he fell to the floor.

Neil was the first to wake, he found that his equipment was taken from him, making him feel almost weightless, with the exception that he still had his flak jacket and was bound to a metal chair. He was in a darkened room, to his left was Kyle and to his right where Franklin and Sam, all still out cold. The only source of light in the room was an annoyingly bright light bulb that hung over his head. Despite the unknown amount of time that he was out for, he felt like he had run a half marathon, his time unconscious was not time resting.

The sound of metal grinding against concrete was heard and Neil could hear footsteps moving to the middle of the room, just out of view of the light, only barely showing his black boots in the darkness.

Nothing was said to start with, then he began to pace around in the darkness and when he reached the left of Neil's view, he spoke with a thick and deep Russian accent. "So, my young American soldier. Do you fear death? You would be right to, you have a potentially long and prosperous life ahead of you, should you make it out of here alive. If you would be so kind as to tell me what it was you where doing down here and I will let you out to run for the dunes and you might just make it out alive."

"I don't what you're talking about." Said Neil as he was told to. He really didn't know much beyond a vague understanding of his own equipment and a loose hold on the language of Spanish so this was not a great departure from the truth.

"What are your objectives boy? Speak now and I will let you go out into the desert, if you don't then I will have to make an example of you." He said, pulling a knife from his hip and holding it to Neil's neck. Neil repeated the same words as he did before and before he knew it, a second man barged into the room. The second man stayed in the shadows and spoke rapidly in Chinese between deep breaths of air to the interrogator.

He seemed to almost argue with the Russian, making occasional hand gestures toward Neil.

The scientist suddenly stopped talking an eerie wave of silence passed over them. The Russian put his knife back into its sheath and called to the hallway. At this moment, Kyle awoke and Franklin was stirring. Sam was still fast asleep and was nearly snoring when he was slapped across the face a few times by the scientist to wake him up. Then 8 fully armed soldiers walked in and undid their bonds holding them to the chairs. They then quickly applied handcuffs to the American squad and walked them out into the hall. The scientist motioned for them to follow and not knowing what to do, they just did as they were told.

The corridor twisted and turned beneath the desert until it opened up into a large underground area much like an aircraft carrier's underdeck. There were hundreds of soldiers and technicians, engineers and builders working on colossal structures, one of them being a large moving crane that caught Neil's eye. It was moving their Jeep. The crane operator was called to by the same scientist that had saved him from execution mere moments ago. The crane then moved toward the walkway they were on and stopped just next to it.

The platform was more than big enough for the Jeep, although it was a bit of a squeeze for the 8 guards, 4 marines, the scientist and the interrogator as well as the Jeep all crammed on its concrete surface.

The scientist held his hands to his mouth in a cone shape and shouted to the crane operator in Chinese and he nodded in confirmation. The crane began to move downwards, deeper into the facility before it connected to a platform rail on the wall of the tunnel they descended down.

Before long, another, chamber, much like the last one although smaller was present and the platform was now moving along the rails, clearly visible and directed to take them diagonally downwards for about 20 meters before levelling out into a horizontal movement.

This continued and eventually they reached the end of the long track. The scientist disembarked the platform, having now stopped at the end of the room before a massive door.

He swiped a key card and spoke a voice confirmation before the door began to open. It revealed a large chamber that had what appeared have a control room of sorts along the ceiling. About 20 feet wide was a massive mechanical octagon like structure. It had massive cables and tubes connected to it and the whole room felt cold, their breaths collectively condensing in front of them and their feet growing numb.

The scientist walked along a different path and the guards and interrogator moved off of the platform, the squad was about to start getting off as well but they were denied. The platform continued in motion into the chamber and the grand door sealed shut behind them.

When the door sealed shut, their handcuffs beeped and unlocked; giving them their first piece of freedom since being captured.

They were left in the chamber with their Jeep and Sam was the first to see that their gear had been left with the Jeep. At first Kyle thought this was some grave mistake on the Chinese and Russians part but they did not appear worried in the control room when Sam took his rifle and (after checking to see that it was loaded) scoped in on the control room scientists.

They armed themselves ready for whatever was coming for them, putting on their headphones and helmets as well as slinging equipment over their backs.

Standing by the Jeep before they could get in and start the engine, a loudspeaker could be heard coming on and the voice of the scientist from earlier came on, speaking in broken English. "Um, Hello American soldiers. Please know I mean not harm to you. This will not take very long much."

The same then started speaking in Chinese, much faster and more confidently than in English but this time it was almost procedural. Sam had some very sparse knowledge of Chinese but he could pick out a few words like "First", "Dangerous" and "Rapid decompression".

Then the colossal ring began to make noises that reverberated throughout the chamber with increasing volume and frequency. The ring began to light up at the corners of the octagonal shape as it began to almost deafen the soldiers. Screaming at them as they fought and fidgeted to put combat earplugs in before it got much worse.

Looking at the state of his soldiers, Franklin realised his squad looked just as they did when they were caught in a massive earthquake in the Middle East; helmets off, uniforms bedraggled and pained expressions on their faces. A few memories from the operation gone-wrong flowed through Franklin's head and he knew, if he could survive that, he had to survive whatever the Russians and Chinese had to give him.

A heavy gust of air broke into the room, despite the rising volume the frequency had risen above their range of hearing, they now had splitting headaches. Suddenly there was an absence weight, or rather gravity as everything in the room began to loose its weight, including the soldiers; who all clung desperately to the Jeep as it too began to lift off of the ground and into the air.

The colossal ring began to sling massive electrical arcs across its space and before long, the space in the ring was filling with something, or rather filling with space. There was a starry void in the place of the back wall and while this would be enough to make anyone start to panic, it really made to panic Kyle the most as he struggled to keep his MRE down in his stomach. Neil took a very deep breath

Before the they reached the void, a distant column of light could be seen to forge out deep in the void, Neil thought this could have been the fabled 'light at the end of the tunnel' you supposedly see when you are dying and in all fairness to the idea that this could well have been happening as the temperature continued to drop and the grew air increasingly scarce.

Then the noise of air left them completely as the sound of rushing winds suddenly stopped, as they passed into and through the ring, looking back the squad saw the chamber that had left behind them before the lightening portal around their vehicle snapped shut and the world they knew was gone. They were in a starry void with a distant column of light that seemed to almost flow in one direction. They all knew that it was a long shot but it was their best bet.

The soldiers could feel their temperatures falling, there was air, but not enough to stay conscious for long. The Jeep already had some motion from the vacuum earlier but they weren't going to get to the pillar of light and stay awake at this rate, and that was not including the idea that the pillar would last that long.

But they were weightless. They already wore their equipment and pushed off of the Jeep, rocking it away as they flew towards the column. Sam, Franklin and Kyle were beginning to black out but Neil still had some air in him, he huddled them together in an attempt to keep some heat between them before they could reach the steam of light.

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 **The Kindergarten - 14:54 Local Time**

Neil could breathe. The air was cold and bitter but it was still air, rich with nurturing oxygen that cleared the pain in his burning muscles and pulsing head.

Neil was on the floor of what appeared to be a large crystalline platform which protruded from the scorched earth around him. It was dark and Neil could barely see, but removing his goggles did little to improve his vision as the whole area just appeared to be viciously dark. When he got up to look around he saw that he was in a massive ravine of sorts, epic cliffs towered around him and while the eerie grey colours and ominous fog clouds rolled around, these were not what put Neil on edge. Rather the massive drill-ended device that resembled bacteriophage virus hanging off of the cliff above him, painted in all black with the exception of a large transparent pale red crystal shape on the 'head' end.

Neil got up and saw that these colossal structures where everywhere, scattered along the walls of the ravine, some where broken and others looked relatively functional, for whatever it is they did. There where also hundreds, possibly even thousands of holes in the sides of the cliffs, shaped like cartoon cutouts of strongmen, this would have been all the motivation that he needed to start moving in any other direction if it hadn't been for the voices he could now hear at the base of his own outcrop.

He noticed that his ears had stopped ringing and he went to pull out his earplugs so he could hear what the voices below where.

They sounded like... Kids! American accents... This was a very strange experience, get held by Russian and Chinese soldiers, go into a starry void, find yourself in a large and dark ravine. His CO was still out cold, as where the rest of the squad. He wasn't going to go on any longer without any answers, he needed to find out what was going on; if he did a good enough job, this could be the kind of mindset that got him promoted.

He moved his team off of the large crystal platform and hid them behind some large rocks, still up on the platform above the voices. Looking over the edge he saw a young boy, about 12 years old, wearing a pink shirt and jeans and... A green thing?

The boy was holding the green thing's hand and walking it around and away from the base of the cliff he stood atop. Getting a better angle on the green thing, he saw it was a girl, roughly the same size as the boy, although she appeared to have a mass of blond hair in the shape of a large triangle. She wore green and even had green skin, which was mildly disturbing to Neil.

 _I know some kids do some weird things... Maybe it's a kid playing dress-up or something? But why would she dress up and go to a ravine? How did these kids get here?_

There where many questions that pained Neil right now and he was sure there would be answers somewhere, he just had to go and get them.

Neil waited until they where out of earshot, he dropped his mortar tube and took Sam's PLD device before sliding down the cliff until he was on level ground with the kids, who had no moved around a corner and where likely moving further away, Neil had to catch up.

Staying low near the corners, trying to keep quiet, he pulled up the PLD to get a view on any thermal traces from the kids, unless they where wearing boots with thermal insulation, there should be some thermal residue from their footsteps. Sure enough there where small glowing foot steps leading around a corner, where Neil heard the voices.

"This place just gets worse every time I come here." Said who Neil thought was the young boy, now visibly wearing pink flip-flops.

"I know, its been so poorly managed, it must have been in much better shape when you first emerged." Said the green woman, she had a very nasal tone to her voice and sounded older than her size had lead Neil to believe.

"Emerged?" Said the young boy.

"Yeah, you're some kind of quartz right? You must've been made here." This was getting a little weird for Neil, he focused in on the two from a distance and saw that the green woman had a green gemstone stuck to her forehead.

"Uhh, I came from my Mom and Dad."

"Are those some kind of rocks? Or another planet?" Said the green woman. She seemed to lack any understanding in human reproduction and while this would have caused Neil to believe that the Earth had been invaded by aliens of some description, he reminded himself that this may not even be Earth, he had no idea where he was or even if the boy before him was a human himself.

"Nope, my dad's from Earth but my Mom's a Gem." He replied, pulling up his shirt to reveal a fist-sized pink gemstone in his bellybutton. Neil was now even more confused, he needed more information, basic information.

It seemed that there was an Earth and something must've happened in his absence.

 _Did aliens invade and make peace while he had been out in the void? Or maybe he was in another dimension where aliens had already invaded, in which case, what is the case for world order? Are humans a slave species now?_

Neil wanted to push the ideas out of his head for now and try to just gather subjective information.

The green woman looked at the boy's gemstone and spoke with a pinch of curiosity and a fistful of confusion. "You're some sort of hybrid? How is that even possible?"

"The answer to that is a story I like to call _The Ballad of Rose and Greg-"_

The clearly clueless green woman held her hand up to him and cut him off before he could continue. "I don't care, let's just continue to the control room."

With this they began to walk away, still holding hands. "Are you sure this is safe? Last time I was here there where a bunch of fusion monsters."

They walked out into a clearing where a large, perfectly square shaft was present in the ground.

Still holding hands, Neil saw them go to the hole and slide downward into the abyss.

"Yes-" Said the green woman "I was checking their progress."

"What's the deal with those things?"

 _Great, so if this place wasn't weird enough anyway, the kids are talking about something I don't think I would want to meet alone... This is just perfect. If it wasn't for the distance back to the squad I would have turned back but I guess I have gone too far to turn back now._

"When it became clear that Earth would no longer be a viable colony, Homeworld decided to use it for something else."

Their voices where disappearing down the shaft but he could still hear them from the top of the shaft.

"A series of experiments, a Gem geo-weapon."

"Oh, did you help?" Interrupted the young boy.

"Negative, I wasn't lucky enough to be around for that, but I read-over a few hundred years of reports!"

The sounds of their foot steps were growing faint but then they stopped.

"We are going to have to restore power to this room soo... Could I have my hand back now?" Said the the woman.

"Okay, but stay where I can see you."

A moment later, some struggling and grunting was heard. Then it abruptly stopped. "It's over, I can't show you anything, let's go back."

Neil was about to get up and look for cover when the boy spoke next. "Mind if I try?"

"Go ahead, knock yourself out."

A second later a metallic clanging sound was heard and it seemed that all was well for the time being, they continued to work away at the bottom of the shaft.

"There you go!" Went the voice of the young boy.

"Okay, give me a moment." She started grumbling, almost silent against the chilling breeze of the outside but still just barely audible before she spoke again.

"There, it's not perfect but it'l do for now." A few seconds later the same voice was heard again, this time just exhaling in annoyance.

"What's up Dot?" Said the boy again.

 _Finally, a name... Probably not a real name but it's a start._

"I can't reach the-" She was caught out but then the voice of the boy came over again. "It's okay to ask for help you know."

"I had it under control."

A sound of mechanical and electrical activity was sounded from the tunnel and the back wall of the shaft lit up in a pale green glow.

"There are the first few attempts at artificial fusion."

"That's alotta' Gem shards."

"We where just growing them at this very site, but they where just prototypes for the final product, a singular giant artificial fusion. Comprised of millions of Gem shards: The Cluster."

To say the boy sounded slightly afraid would be an understatement. "So you're saying there's a giant fusion monster the size of the Earth beneath us right now?"

Neil felt a strange sensation as he hugged the ground beneath him, leaning in closer to get a better understanding of what exactly was going on.

"Oh no, when it forms it'l be much bigger than the Earth. Right now, it lies dormant, incubating in the Earth's core but when it emerges and takes it's physical form, it will destroy the planet."

"The prototypes are already emerging, the cluster is next. If we can't get off this planet, we have got to stop the cluster. I thought it would be impossible, but now we have a chance."

"What is it?" Said the young boy.

"It's you Steven!"

 _Another name, well that's great for when I start introducing myself- if I start introducing myself but this sounds like some pretty dangerous shit... I need to tell the others._

This wasn't particularly bad timing on Neil's part, as the small woman apparently named 'Dot' was making her way up the shaft. Neil ran quietly for a hiding place, opting to hide away from the direction they all came from. Clambering over the lip, she got up and started walking away from Neil, much to his relief.

"now that you're up to date, we can get to work." Said Dot

"Uhh, how am I supposed to help?" replied Steven.

"Well, you have all the knowledge regarding Earth and it's erratic behaviour, put that together with my expansive knowledge of the cluster and we might just be able to stop it."

"no Peridot-" Steven got up from the edge, causing 'Peridot' to turn and begin walking back. "-I don't think you get it." Continued Steven.

"Just because I know how clouds work, it doesn't mean I know how to stop a giant mutant in the centre of the Earth. Besides, the only reason I know anything about clouds is because my Dad told me."

Peridot stopped and replied, a tone of worry in her voice. "What are you talking about?"

"I used to be afraid of thunderstorms, then dad explained how rain and all that stuff works, then I wasn't scared of rain any more."

"Well I am sure you have other knowledge on how this planet works."

Steven sounded uneasy, like he wasn't too sure about the responsibility being piled onto him without his consent. "Sure, but none of it's gonna help us. If we wanna' stop this cluster thing, we'll need help from the Crystal Gems."

Peridot seemed to disagree. "I said I don't need them!" She said, on the verge of shouting. "Let's just warp me back to the bathroom or whatever you call it and we'll take care of this. If it looks really bad, then we could just ask this 'dad' for help. Right?"

At this moment, a loud, ear piercing screech could be heard.

"What was that?" Said Peridot.

"Gem mutants!" Said Steven, pointing to the cliff where Neil's squad lay.

Neil looked up and saw something that made him wretch, they looked like Frankenstein's monsters, in that they where loosely tied together. They looked like the outcome of a drunken, mad scientist that had full reign over the local amputation clinic.

A creature made mostly of arms and legs, spewing from it's central form crawled and clawed it's way down the cliff and started for the two before Neil. The only blank space on it's ghastly body that wasn't occupied with additional limbs was quickly revealed to be the mouth of the monster, with rows upon rows of teeth. Neil had to do something, he didn't know what bullets would do or what the people before him would do in response but he couldn't sit idly by while, what he supposed was a couple of kids (or at the least, a kid and an alien) get mauled by these abominations from his worst nightmares.

He called to the two, as they stood there frozen in shock. "Hey! Kids! Over here!" He got up and waved to them, grabbing their attention from the almost slimy reach of the horrors before them.

..,,,..,,.'''','.''.,'.'','.'','.','.','''.','.''''.,''.','.',.'',.'',.'''','.''''',.,...

Steven turned to see a strangely dressed human and was, at first just confused. He stood for a second thinking about why a human of all things was standing around in the kindergarten of all places. Then he remembered what was happening around him. Steven summoned his bubble to protect him and Peridot, who stood, still frozen. He shook her.

"We got to get out of here! C'mon!"Steven began to roll the bubble in the direction of Neil, who held up and pointed a large, black metal device to the mutant behind them. As they passed him, he pulled on the machine and an ear cracking storm of fire poured from the end of the machine, streaks of light burned and pained on the mutants, it was clearly hurting them a great deal, though it lacked sufficient stopping power to stop the larger mutants, which seemed to just shrug off the rain of hell that spewed from the machine. Steven dropped the bubble, the loud noises from the machine reverberating in the bubble and giving him and Peridot headaches.

It almost looked like it was going to work until it stopped. He fumbled for something from his jacket and dropped it on the ground. He just dropped the whole machine and pulled a smaller, though similarly designed one from his hip and started to do the same with it. It had even less of an impact on the mutants and in a matter of a few seconds, it too stopped working.

"What. The. Fuck." He spoke with a grain of anger and frustration, as the largest creatures continued to claw toward him. He grabbed a small clay brick from his bag and put it on the cliff wall before getting us to move away, he pulled a pin and started running to join us, the gem mutants not far behind.

He held a small device that looked a lot like a hand-held radio without a speaker or microphone. When the Gem mutants neared the brick, he stood in the open holding nothing but the small, yellow device in his hand. "Cover your ears, kids." He slammed his hand down on the device and the brick exploded in a massive ball of fire that shook the foundations of the cliff. Soon after, the gem mutants tried to reform their missing limbs before the whole cliff face came down and crushed their physical forms. They where all 'poofed' and forced into their gemstones.

,.','.'.','.',.','.',.','.',.','.'.,.','.,.,'.,'.,'.',.','.,'.,'.','.,'.,'.

Neil remembered his training in the use of C4 explosive, he was told never to use it for direct harm to organic material. It wasn't like his instructor cared for any creature's welfare, he just didn't want to have to put any squirrels out of their misery, which he would have to clean up from the testing range. He mainly cared for the revolting stench of burning flesh, which would fill your nostrils from miles away and make any hardened soldier have second thoughts on what their choice of career was.

But there wasn't any stench like he had been warned. There was dust of course, massive clouds of dust rolled toward him, which he thought would make him look totally bad ass to the kids behind him. When Steven dropped his bubble, having brought it up by reflex from the explosion, he was met with a stranger that kneeled to his level and took his goggles off, revealing his deep blue eyes and his full facial expression, which was a smile, giving him a sense of comfort and security. "So, Steven and... Peridot... I am Neil."

"Hi Neil." Replied Steven, still a little bit shaken by the explosion.

"I have a lot of questions for you two but for now, I would like to know if you two have-"

"STEVEN!" Screeched a female voice.

 **Author's Note**

 **There we go, I fixed it!**

 **Those of you unfortunate enough to read the first iteration of this chapter, I am sorry I scarred you, have this new version that I worked slightly harder on. I even tried to keep continuity this time!**

 **I still have the original ending if you feel some strange sense of longing for a terrible fist draft so don't worry, it hasn't been lost to limbo. Even so, this is where I was hoping to start this storey and if you haven't read the original, don't worry. All you missed out on was a terribly scripted fight scene between 4 very confused marines and the crystal gems, which finished with the destruction of the Communication Hub from the Steven Universe episode: Cry for Help.**

 **This episode is set during the episode: When it Rains. One of my personal favourites so far.**

 **The real question I wanted to ask was what would happen if the four mad marines from the insanity that is Battlefield multiplayer had their own personalities and characters? Then I looked to Battle Field Friends for a semi-rip-off but I tried to be mostly original!**

 ***Pleads for attention and forgiveness***

 **Anyway, this story is largely going to follow Delta Squad and the Crystal gems as they try to save the SU Earth from the cluster and find a way back to the Russian and Chinese facility before the US nukes the entire facility and starts world war 3... But we'll see if they can do it first! I still don't know who the main bad guys are or how I want this to end... Or maybe I am just covering for my terrible plot making skills!**

 ***Evil laughter***


	2. Chapter 2- BREKEKEKEKEKEKE

**A/N- This chapter is now complete! If you find any errors like spelling, grammar or punctuation, please PM me here or on twitter so I can sort them out.**

 **Enjoy this stain of work!**

 **The Kindergarten- 15:12 Local Time**

"STEVEN!" Screeched a female voice.

A tall, thin silhouette could be seen clawing and searching through the dust in a hunt for the boy before Neil. This was a very conflicting moment, what if the only reason the children listened to him was because he is an adult and it was probably safer than Gem mutants? What if they just didn't know any better and now he could be on the wrong end of animal control; after all, this world was definitely not a familiar place to him.

"STEVEN! WHERE ARE YOU?" She called again.

"I'M OVER HERE PEARL!" Called Steven. Neil didn't think he really had to shout as loudly as he did but he had just been exposed to a combat situation with ear protection that varied from his hands to his ears to no protection at all so it felt warranted at the least.

The woman 'Pearl' sounded like a normal enough adult. It had occurred to Neil that Steven said his mother was called 'Rose', when he was stalking behind them earlier. Neil tried to think of a better way of wording what he did so that he didn't sound like a total creep and settled on 'neutral reconnaissance' as it at least sounded professional, like something Sam might do.

The dust began to settle and clear away, revealing the woman as she ran, flat out sprinting towards Steven as she made her way over the mounds of debis. There was some possibility that Pearl was an aunt or maybe even an older sister; unlikely but not impossible. She neared and Neil could pick out key parts of her appearance.

Pearl was a very pale character, with coral hair that flowed into a sort of point at the back of her head. She had a large… Well, a large Pearl in her forehead, her hair was parted slightly around it.

Pearl was a very thin person, with spindly arms and legs. She wore what appeared to be a ballerina's outfit, in a well matched colour scheme to her hair and skin; being a pale aqua blue and having orange short leggings, complete with orange ballerina shoes. She had a tormented expression on her face.

"Steven, what are-"

Then she saw Neil, standing behind the kids as they stood forward to receive Pearl.

She wasn't particularly pleasant to him. The first thing she did was get the two small ones behind her and she reached for her Pearl and it began to glow. A shaft grew and protruded from her Pearl and she grasped it with her right hand. She pulled straight outward from it and brandished the spear in Neil's direction.

Neil was surprised to say the least. He fell back, onto the floor and let himself sit there. At this distance, even if he knew how to dodge a spear, he wouldn't have the time to pull out his handgun and let any bullets go. He had no choice but to sit and listen.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Pearl said. She spoke with a commanding authority, the character Neil had assumed she was, the one that ran up with tears welling up in her eyes, dashing through the rubble was not standing before him. She commanded a response and if she didn't like it, it would be game over for Neil.

"I-I am Neil, an-and I don't know what I am doing here. I could tell you how I think I got here but you wouldn't believe me."

"Well that's just not-"

"Stop Pearl!" cried Steven, now huddled around her legs with Peridot standing awkwardly to the side. "He didn't do anything wrong!"

"He didn't- I'm assuming it wasn't you or Peridot that destroyed half of the Kindergarten! If this human poses any threat to you, then I can't let him continue to do that."

Neil saw his opportunity to swing the argument in his favour. "Please, I don't mean any harm. I was only trying to protect these two from…" His train of thought hit a wall and he looked to little Steven for an answer. "What did you call them?"

"Gem mutants."

"Yes, thank you."

Neil was about to continue to push his point of being a protector of the innocent but he didn't get a chance to. Steven felt a responsibility to push this point for him.

"You should've seen it! He was standing over there-" He said pointing to a patch of rubble. "- and he used this thing that sounded like *BREKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE* and then it stopped working so he dropped it and then he took a smaller one and it was like *PAH, PAH, PAH, PAH* and he told us to get back and he blew up the whole cliff like *KABWOOOSH* and crushed all of the gem mutants! He saved us!"

Peridot stepped in to add her two cents. "I have confirm this is an accurate recollection of the events that just transpired."

Pearl stood and eventually put her spear to her side, where it began to disappear into light. A brief moment later there was no spear at all and her empty hand moved forward to help Neil up from the ground. She had an almost apologetic face, possibly even slightly embarrassed for her aggressive inquisition.

"Well I still have to ask what it is you are doing here." She said, this time more quietly interested and less aggressively assaulting. Neil took her hand and found her to be surprisingly strong and steady.

He met her eyes, a light aqua like her dress and he continued up to be about a foot and a half taller than her. Neil spoke. "I would tell you everything, you don't know how much I could do with a friend right now but I am not authorised to give you that information. I know it sounds bad but trust me on this, once my CO wakes up-" Then it hit Neil.

He left his whole squad up on the platform. They were up there and while he thought he hid them relatively well, it was more than possible that they had been murdered in their slumber and where now nothing more than a mushy pile of human flesh and torn uniforms.

He took off and just ran, dancing over and around rubble and up to the small cliff and climbed up, scampering as he struggled with his footing on the steep angle and the equipment he still carried. The characters below had managed to catch up to him and see him clawing is way up the last part of the cliff and crawling over the lip to the warp pad.

,.,''','.','''.,'.','.',.,.','.,'.'''.,''.,'.',',.,..'',..,

"Oh thank God!" He could be heard exclaiming over the edge. Pearl did a small super jump up to the platform, carrying Steven and Peridot under either arm. They were all surprised to see another three humans, all similarly dressed and equipped to Neil. All of the humans looked completely terrified of their surroundings but Neil appeared to be merry and glad that his comrades had returned to the land of the living.

"Vickers! What is going on! Where are we?" Said the man wearing a combat helmet and full balaclava before he turned his gaze unto the three gems and held up his weapon to them. "HALT!" He called. The other two humans, less armoured but similarly dressed then held their respective machines to them, having torn their attention from their surroundings.

Neil interrupted them and tried to diffuse the situation.

"Sargent Connors!-" Neil said, putting his hand over the end of the weapon. "- These people are not of any significant threat. I think they may be locals. I mean look at the kids." Franklin looked to the two shortest ones present and thought about how strange this situation was.

Then the Peridot decided to speak up.

"Hey! You can stop calling me a kid, you overdressed meat-sack clod! I'll have you know I may not have size but I have more years of service than all of you combat sponges put together!"

The other two humans, less dressed than the first two lowered their weapons in confusion, looking each other in the eyes, so as if to check that they both heard the same thing.

Kyle kneeled down to Peridot, trying to meet her height but still staying a few inches above her, a snicker trying to form on his face.

"That's real cute. How about you take a step aside and let the adults talk about boring stuff."

"I will have you know that I will bring about your demise if you continue to talk to me in this way. If you were under my command, I would have you shattered for this transgression!"

"That's nice sweetie." He said, standing up and turning to Sam. He mouthed a few belittling words and pointed to the small and angry green creature.

Kyle didn't seem particularly phased by his surroundings, largely because he hadn't noticed anything more than a small cliff and the rocks around him.

Sam and Franklin had seen a bit more and, while there was a potentially dangerous situation at hand, with strangely dressed locals; their surroundings felt like the sort of scene you might find in Limbo, which was a growing concern in Franklin's mind in particular.

He couldn't tolerate the deafening screeching of the little green thing much longer and he snapped.

Pulling his revolver out he simply fired a shot into the air; the unsuppressed crack of thunder it gave off was more than enough to get everyone's attention. "ALRIGHT!" he exclaimed.

"I want to know where I am, what brought me here and how do we get back to command to get the message across not to nuke possibly the only way out of here so we can all go home and forget this ever happened."

The tall pale woman spoke at the same time as the two short ones. "You're in the Kindergarten."

A moment and they all looked at each other in minor confusion. Then the tallest woman spoke, holding a hand to the other's to prevent any further confusion. "This place is typically only accessible via warp pad." The men all looked confused. "- The large crystal platform behind me."

They all looked to the platform and gave a collective "Ooh" of understanding before questioning what that meant. "What's a warp pad?" asked the one the others referred to as Sam. "It's our means of traversing the planet most efficiently. You haven't seen a warp pad before?"

They collectively shook their heads in disconfirmation. "Well then, I guess you are up for quite a ride. Tell me where you want to go and I'll see if there is a warp pad local to it." Pearl said. She sounded like she just wanted this chapter of her life to end so she could focus on forgetting it. She was done working with incompetent humans.

Steven, however wasn't.

,.,.'.',''.,'.',.,.',.'.','.,.,.''.,.','.','.,'.',.,.,.

Upon agreeing to trust the ballerina lady, Delta squad stepped onto the large platform, along with the three strangers.

It was a little cramped.

The tall ballerina, called Pearl had told them it wasn't very safe to use a cramped warp pad but Delta wouldn't accept being split up on a planet they didn't know.

Or rather they did know, but not in this way.

Franklin stood and asked Pearl for a location

"Is there a United States of America?"

"Yes, you're in them."

This was unexpected.

"Is there a Washington State?"

"There is, I don't know about any warp pads there but we shall see."

Franklin was silent, the squad contemplated the more wild possibilities of what reality there where in.

"What year is it?"

"Oh, the date is May 14th 2015 C.E."

That eliminates that possibility, they hadn't travelled in time, not by much anyway; they were only a few days out of sync.

"I don't think this is the right world for us, boys."

Franklin had the idea before most but they all caught on. They were hoping that maybe this was their world and they could just 'warp in' and hand over their report and the mission would be over with that. Things weren't looking to be so simple.

Steven felt bad for them. He didn't have any idea it was that made this group of humans think this wasn't Earth. Or maybe it was that it wasn't their Earth.

Steven whispered to Pearl about their probable situation and she assumed that it would not be the case.

She lowered her arms from the standard warp travelling position, outstretched to her sides and spoke to them.

"I don't suppose you know where you are going do you?"

Then the leader began to ask a few rather odd questions.

"Is the United States at war with any nation or group?"

"No, there haven't been any wars for many years. Not since we put our foot in on the human politics side of things."

The soldiers mumbled between each other and then the leader said something that perplexed Pearl greatly.

"We are not from this world."

"How do you mean? Your'e not gems are you?" She replied. She knew it was a very stupid thing but if what they said was true, then it was one of the only real ideas that could have made any sense; at least to pearl.

"What? Gems? No, we are humans… I don't think this is our Earth."

"Well… In what way? What makes you think this could possibly be the case." Pearl wanted to be right and just keep things simple, as she spoke in a defensive tone. It would be hard to maintain control if the people before her are from an alternate world and the prospects of this; the implications. They could be disastrous.

The soldiers talked among themselves a little.

Then Neil stepped forward.

"I have something to show you, I hope you have a laptop around somewhere."

,.,.,''','.,'.','.,.',,'.,'.',.,'.',.'.','.',.,'.,'.',.,

As luck would have it, Steven did have a laptop in his home. At first Pearl was against the idea of having four humans, yet alone, four complete strangers in her home. But she relented under the weight of Steven pressuring her for compassion and care.

The warp pad ignited and they were all surrounded in light. They all made the connection at their own points of the journey; that this was the stream of light they saw when they first entered the void.

The weightlessness was enough to keep Kyle and Sam occupied, as they both tried to maintain some composure and to keep down their, now slightly more digested MREs. Franklin just looked around in wonder at the lights and began to converse with Pearl and Peridot about what exactly a warp pad was, where they came from and how it worked. Neil had other ideas however.

Neil had no significant problems with the lack of gravity and he went to the wall of the stream, putting his hand to the wall, where he felt his hand just phase out of it and then his palm grew cold.

Steven saw this and joined him on that side of the stream. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"I need to check something out." He replied, before sticking his head out of the stream to get a look around. Steven followed him to meet him outside the aura that protected them from the cold and unforgiving void that was the warp.

"Hey, you know I had the same idea once but there isn't much air or warmth out here so we should stay in-" Then Steven was caught out by Neil grabbing him and diving him back into the stream.

The squad's Jeep from before crossed their stream and almost hit the group, passing just above them as they zipped past its intersection point. None of the warp travellers noticed except Neil and Steven as it flew past them, back into the void without a sound.

"What was that?" whispered Steven, trying not to panic Pearl.

"That was our Jeep… We drove that Jeep."

"What do you mean, 'you drove that Jeep'?" Steven replied, a sense on uncertainty in his voice that would normally be heard when someone saw something very big and dangerous right behind you.

"I'll show you, you just got to get us a computer."

,.,.','','.','.,.,.',.','.,'.',.','.,'.',.','.,'.',.,.,.

 **The Beach House- 16:54 Local Time**

The warp pad made its characteristic chime sound and the blinding light it usually made when active came and went.

Peridot would have taken this time to describe the problem of the Cluster to the Gems but this was certainly a very special circumstance, even she wanted to know what was going on and looked forward to the answers that she could gain from their explanation.

"The others are still out looking for you two but they should be back shortly" Said Pearl as she carelessly stepped off of the warp pad and into the living area of the beach house, followed by Steven and Peridot.

The soldiers were a little different in their departure from the warp pad.

Firstly, only Neil and Franklin managed not to land in a pile or a few feet in the air and even so, Franklin was still uneasy in his landing, being just a few inches off of the pad. Neil had an almost disastrous landing for his first warp,although technically it wasn't his, or anyone's first warp. They all warped when they landed in the Kindergarten. Only Neil had conscious experience in the ways of the warp.

Upon noticing their surroundings, they all had the different thoughts; from what kind of world this was, to where was the bathroom to how much would a place like this cost? It was roomy and open with a glorious beach view. The living area was a wide area with a sofa and chairs around a coffee table. There was also a Kitchen-diner and an upper loft area with a bed and television.

Behind them, was the crystal gem's temple. The entire back end of the house being directly connected to the rocky face, where the warp pad and a large door with a star shape on it was present.

Everything seemed shiny.

"Here we are. Steven, show them to your… Stuff." Said Pearl, almost sounding a little disappointed at relying on human technology for an explanation to something she could probably explain herself.

Steven excitedly ran up the small staircase and into the loft where he failed to find his laptop. He searched around for it, growing increasingly concerned as he continued to tip and turn a wide variety of things in his room.

The squad, having now gotten used to their position in the room and calming themselves down made for the sofa and began to set down some of the heavier equipment, including their helmets, hats, headsets and backpacks. Their weapons where left on the coffee table, although their sidearms where left in their holsters.

Kyle didn't drop by to sit on the sofa, rather he just dropped his heavier (and more volatile) equipment, much to everyone's initial panic; and ran for the only door that probably didn't lead outside to find the bathroom. He made a few disturbing noises and breathed for a bit before he regained a bit of composure and cleaned himself up. He came to the living area and set on an armchair opposite the staircase.

Then an awkward silence enveloped between Pearl, sat next to the stairwell, the four marines sat around the coffee table and between Peridot, who just stood in the open space, waiting on something to happen so that she could have her words regarding the cluster. Sam broke the silence.

"You know, Kyle." He said, looking him in the eye. The entire squad got up enough to also look Sam in the eyes before following his gaze to Kyle. "-I… You know what, never mind."

And then the silence, supplemented by the sounds of crashing waves and Steven still frantically searching for his laptop returned to fill the air.

"Got it!" Steven said, dropping right onto the sofa and sliding between Sam and Neil, from above.

He held his laptop, which looked remarkably normal for a modern laptop of back home to the marines. Neil took the laptop from Steven and checked it for a U.S.B. port. His luck held, it had such a port and he was able to carry out his explanation.

Neil turned to Franklin "Sir, permission to show battle recordings to the civilians?"

Franklin replied. "You know, you can drop the 'Sir' bullsh-wwift with us. That is only for hardasses and the needy." He glanced up to Steven to check that he hadn't heard him curse. Franklin had a son and a wife back home and he knew what kind of things to say and not say in the presence of youth, although being on duty was enough to disengage his senses for a moment.

"Oh good. So can I have your permission to show them the battle recording to show our peculiar situation?"

"Sure go ahead, just do it."

With this, Neil took a small wire cable from his helmet and plugged the U.S.B. into the laptop. He quickly typed a combination of keys and the screen changed and a video tab opened up. It began playing back the events from the moment the battle cameras where first activated on board the transport plane.

It began with Captain Perrick speaking to the camera and Pearl had a few things to say, as did Peridot but they were shushed into silence by Steven, enjoying the video presentation.

It played out like an action movie for the first few minutes, driving a somewhat familiar Jeep out of a plane and into a desert. Then across the dunes to a cave, where they ate, drank and slept. And next the video was skipped forward a few hours until it was night time and they drove off again into the desert. Before long they climbed a dune and saw a truck stop that looked old and broken down.

Neil took the time to explain the reality of their mission to Pearl, Peridot and Steven during the quiet drive. They pulled up, got out and the gun came up, they marched out into the building and down the tunnel. The squad noticed now, in the corners where a few small air vents that must've filled the chamber with noxious gas. They went to the door and, much to the gem's surprise, they began to fall and collapse.

"Why are you falling over? What kind of soldiers are you people?" Complained Peridot, unaware of the effects of a noxious gas on a human's consciousness. Pearl went to explain the reason in her somewhat belittling tone while Steven wanted to continue watching the movie before him. This part was something that the squad wasn't awake for and so, they continued to watch with intrigue, learning what happened to them in their time of rest.

Then the helmets where taken off of the soldiers and put with the Jeep and their other stuff on the surface, while their unconscious bodies were dragged into the facility. The Jeep's point of view was not a fluid as a person's moving of their head but it still presented an interesting insight into the facility.

The Jeep was taken underground on a platform that was revealed by a trap-door-style mechanism. From there it was just moved around for a bit until the camera came to see them, all stood with the Scientist, the Interrogator and the 8 man guard squad.

It had occurred to them that they had only been out for a few minutes at best, which had to be a good thing as it meant that they had a greater chance of making it back in time to call off the air-strike.

Now that the camera had adjusted to the lighting and the soldiers where not still groggy from the drugging, they could clearly see their captors. The Interrogator, being the most distinguished of the group. He wore a military officer's uniform with a wide array of medals that would make a seasoned commander green with envy. He had no hair at all, no hat and no facial hair, the only distinguishing factors on his face being a large three lane scar across his face. He wore a perpetual scowl.

The scientist was scrawny by comparison, being shorter and Chinese, his skin being, somehow more pale than the Russian's. He wore a lab coat with a selection of pens, pencils and a small camera in his top pocket, likely recording everything he did. He also held a clipboard in his hands that had a wide array of scribbles and drawings on it. He had short, combed black hair and had no other distinguishing features about him.

The soldiers that held them and watched them where all dressed the same with black balaclavas covering their whole faces and combat helmets that closely resembled Franklin's, along with the standard ballistic vest and their armaments, AEK-971s… Brutally accurate and rapid assault rifles.

They all mounted the platform, the scientist shouted some words, the platform moved and Steven sat there on the sofa, reaching for some snacks he had stashed at arm's reach.

Then things got interesting.

For one, the warp pad in the room, chimed and lit up, revealing Garnet and Amethyst. Who immediately noticed the extra company. They were fairly calm about this, drawing from Pearl's Steven's and Peridot's source of attention that they should just join them and watch. It was starting to get cramped around the living area.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the laptop screen watching a movie of sorts, the unknown humans in the room hadn't paid any attention to the two more gems that walked up and joined them in watching the laptop intently.

Now they were in the chamber, the scientist had walked off, as had the interrogator and the guards.

The scientist was translated by Pearl as saying "Project Void Gate, Access: 89221" before the chamber opened.

They watched at the colossal device in the underground facility. It began to make massive amounts of noise and the soldiers made pained expressions and then the helmet was moved onto Neil's head, he checked his equipment and then the void gate opened.

The soldiers saw their ultimate demise, seeing their faces back to themselves was additionally painful for themselves as they were reminded of the wholly unpleasant experience.

"What is this?" Garnet said over the continued noise of the void gate. Then she saw the warp behind its perimeter and she had an answer.

Neil replied. "It's how we got here."

They flowed into the warp and most of them began to pass out, the vital readings on the helmets where showing red warnings for low oxygen and low body temperature to all of them. Then the light behind them ceased as Russian and Chinese portal dissipated into the warp.

Now things looked familiar to the Crystal Gems, they knew the warp, even if only in a historical fashion.

They pushed off of the Jeep and made for the light stream, Neil banding his brothers together and then they where in the warp stream.

Neil's vital signs where improving, though he still suffered slightly from minor hypothermia and oxygen deprivation, unlike the slightly worse condition of his team being wholly unconscious.

Then before they knew it, the warp was over and Neil just breathed air, the helmet cam moving slightly with each breath. The camera looked into the sky of the Kindergarten and Neil got up. His camera looked to the edge of the cliff to find Steven and Peridot at the bottom.

"And that's how we got here, I have no idea what any of this is beyond us going into the void."

"It's called the warp." Spoke Garnet. Now the squad noticed the newcomers, Garnet and Amethyst. "-And you typically don't go into the warp without using a warp funnel."

Pearl wanted to be the first one to make the connection and reach the verdict that the humans had also reached and drew a breath to begin her explanation, but Peridot triumphantly made the point first.

"It appears that the humans of your world managed to make a device from a crude array of parts to make a warp interceptor, or at least a machine that is crudely able to break into the Earth warp."

"But these humans from a different world are intercepting our warp." Pearl interrupted, trying to retake the explanation from Peridot. "-I recall Franklin told me there are no Gems where they come from. Maybe they don't even have a gem Homeworld in their universe and that could explain why our visitors have weapons such as these. A world with far greater volumes of combat and war would stimulate weapons development into producing far more advanced equipment and munitions for war."

They had their conclusion on where the humans where from, who they where, (although they still needed to be properly acquainted with the gems present) as the gems understood a world without gems but the soldiers didn't understand what a gem was; further explanation would have to be done.

They trusted the fact that they hadn't tried to kill anyone yet and seemed friendly enough that despite their otherworldly nature and their job involving combat and danger as they exercised that they where peace keepers on their world; the design was flawed but it had good intentions at its root.

Then Peridot made herself known. For a moment, the entire building of gems forgot that she was constantly trying to get away from them and she saw this ceasefire as her chance to tell them about the cluster.

,.,.''',.','.',.',','.',.'.','.','.,.,.,.',.','.','.,'.,.,

She stood between the coffee table and the kitchen-diner and tried to speak down to the Crystal gems and the soldiers, still holding a minor grudge from earlier towards Kyle for his condescending tone.

"Ahem. I also have something of great importance to tell you all and while I would normally be apprehensive towards working with-" She shuddered slightly and grit her teeth. "-The _Crystal Gems,_ I am afraid that this is something I cannot affix, even with the aid of Steven."

Everyone gave her the atmosphere of the room to do with as she saw fit. She attempted to make a scene that would be dramatic and influential as this could well be her only chance at convincing her captors to give her rein over their actions.

This was very hard.

"I am sure you have all witnessed the danger and volatility of the experimental forced gem fusions."

Garnet grit her teeth in anger, an emotion she did not frequently use unless the subject matter was particularly close to her heart.

"And it may be a cause for concern to you all to know what I am about to reveal to you."

Peridot took a deep breath and looked to Steven, giving an encouraging smile and a thumbs up.

"There is a colossal super gem shard fusion at the Earth's core, compromised of millions of gem shards. We called it the Cluster."

The Crystal Gems took a collective gasp, with the exception of Steven. The Marines seemed to be a little lost as they looked at the others sat around them to gauge the appropriate reaction for this revelation. Neil already knew about this, being as he eavesdropped on Steven and Peridot during her first explanation.

Pearl spoke for the Crystal Gems, a pinch of panic in her voice; she already had enough stress with the idea of interdimensional humans breaking into their warp and so the possibility of a gem mutant this size being right beneath her feet was stirring. "So are you suggesting that we should help you?"

"-To help me help you. It would be a mutually beneficial action, unless it is possible that you could provide interstellar transport; in which case we can dump this stupid rock and go back to Homeworld."

Talking about 'this stupid rock' like that somewhat offended the majority of the room's occupants, all being fighters for their respective Earths stability and safety. The marines where lacking in their response as they had heard something similar to this before, being used to patrolling in the deserts and towns and receiving frequent verbal abuse from the occasional local that stood against their presence.

It had slipped past the minds of the squad that this world could well belong to aliens that had previously invaded and only Franklin had even the slightest inkling that there where even other humans on this planet; from his conversation with Pearl and Peridot in the warp stream. Either way, they where still against the idea of leaving Earth, even if it wasn't their Earth for problem of 'it was too hard'.

Garnet unclenched the fists she didn't realise she had clenched. "Well then." She sounded cool and in control, which made Franklin feel almost jealous for her ability to control and manipulate the atmosphere around them. "-We'd better get to work."

Amethyst had already become bored of the presentation and would probably have no idea what she was doing until someone would tell her to her face, as she moved past Peridot toward the fridge for snacks. But this was not relevant to Peridot, who had now decided that this was the time to end the presentation and begin disassembling everything around her.

Pearl took the time to translate the effect the Cluster would have on the planet, being total annihilation of the very heavenly body itself.

This was the time to prioritise, as Peridot stated that they wouldn't have long until the Cluster began it's eruption onto the interplanetary stage but would it be before the squad could get home and prevent the air strike that would surely strand them in this otherworldly place they knew so little about?

If the Cluster hatches, they could all die.

If the air strike comes, it could be World War III and the marines would have failed their duty.

But what do they do? And how do they get Peridot to stop breaking all of Steven's stuff?

 **Okay, there is the setup. What will happen to out courageous group of heroes? Also the Marines...  
What are they going to do?  
** **How can they help?  
** **Will they help a world that isn't theirs for the sake of others or will they try to go at it alone?**

 **Also where is the cat? I need to feed it like half an hour ago...**


	3. Chapter 3- Robo-showdown

**If you haven't read the second chapter since it was first uploaded, you may want to check it or you may miss a part of the story/ witness unintended continuity issues and think I am a terrible writer... Don't worry, I am just a terrible schedule maker. Might want to re-read the last chapter (just the second half should be enough) to keep updated on the story.**

 **P.S. If you feel like being a part of this story, I could really use a cover image! Let me know with private messaging or reviews if you have a picture for me!**

 **The Beach House- 17:13 Local Time**

It only took Peridot about 4 seconds to jump onto the kitchen counter and begin dismantling the microwave for its components.

The crystal gems watched in amusement as the small green creature latched onto technology and pulled things apart like a sort of angry green leech, Steven however was less keen on having his home destroyed by the actions of a new friend; even if that friend didn't actually know what a 'friend' was.

The squad sat in the living area, some with bemused grins and others scratching their heads, struggling to get the magnitude of the situation around their heads. After all, what do they prioritise? They are still on the mission, even if it had gone rather off course and the weight of their escape rested on what they prioritised. Should they work with these alien creatures to help them save their world before hoping for a returned favour or should they go their own way and try to solve this problem themselves?

Franklin made the call.

"Alright, listen up." He said, standing above the other marines and even still above most of the shorter gems; halting them in their actions varying from pulling open a television to cleaning up the mess from the last few pieces of ex-kitchen appliances.

"We have a problem with this schedule. Peridot-" he said looking up to the loft to meet her somewhat uneasy gaze. "-Can you give me an idea on how long something like this might take? I get that it's urgent but so is our mission and it may be the weight of your world resting on this but it's also the weight of our world resting on us making it back in time."

Garnet made no shift in her character, staring blankly from behind her shades and still standing in the same pose she first held when Peridot began her explanation. Amethyst had moved for the fridge and despite still facing the large white cubicle, she held a solemn look on her face. Pearl was moving to clean up Peridot's most recent mess and she contained and equally understanding look on her face.

Peridot didn't care much for this Earth, yet alone this 'other Earth' where gems supposedly never existed and humans where so many times more likely to kill each other anyway but Steven made up for her lack of empathy with his heart pouring for them, while he appreciated having the extra help, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he felt responsible for the demise of so many people, so many contented families that where, at this very moment minding their own business, not asking for anything but to have a happy and peaceful life together.

Pearl, Amethyst and Steven looked to Garnet with awaiting gazes, all hoping for answers from the towering woman, which she failed to provide. She just silently gazed onward, locked in thought.

Then she shrugged.

There was no wry grin to complement it, no other expression or action to suggest it wasn't a big deal. This was a big deal and it was a big question. They all needed each other and they needed to do something or they would lose both worlds. Then she said something.

"I don't know what to do, but we need to do something."

Peridot simply didn't notice the tension in the room and set back to prying open the television before Steven could stop her and halt her rampage through his home. "Stop! I have an idea that doesn't involve destroying the house. Why don't we go back to my Uncle and Aunt's barn on the hilltop and use the stuff they have there instead!" Steven said, triumphantly as he held his arms in the air. "And as for you guys, I know you just wanna go home right now but we can't help you right now." His arms fell to his sides and a solemn look took over his face. "I really want to help you guys, we owe you after all, for what happened in the Kindergarten and we will repay you-" A small tremor took over the exchange, shuddering the foundations of the home before it quickly died out. Peridot made for the cover of Steven and held him closely, in an attempt to comfort herself.

Steven knew what to say to move this on, after all they couldn't spend the rest of Earth's time waiting for each other to make the decision and it looked like neither Garnet nor Franklin where going to take the lead.

"We need to stop the cluster, it can't be too hard to stop the Cluster if we work together and besides, we're all in this same boat for now; the last thing we need is to divide our attention and ignore each other."

He had everyone's attention, Garnet smiled at him in her casual, cool way and gave a thumbs up in approval to his taking charge of the bad situation.

The soldiers were also looking to Franklin to get his approval on who to listen to; after all, where they really going to put their assigned mission to the side and help these alien beings save their world over the Earth they knew so much better, the Earth they called home?

Franklin knew they knew nothing of this world or of how to get back, he knew they had no choice but to take whatever help they could get and if his squad saved another world in the process, even better.

"Good enough for me." He said, gaining a sigh of relief from the squad as they let go of the breaths they didn't realise they had been holding.

.,.,'.','.,'.','.','.',.','.,.,'.',.','.','.','.,.,.

 **The Hilltop Barn- Day1- 17:24 Local Time**

The soldiers knew there were too many people to fit them all on the warp pad at once, being 4 human soldiers- with a full kit, a demigem child, 3 large gem women and a small Homeworld gem technician.

They would have to split up and take separate trips.

Garnet, Amethyst, Peridot, Franklin and Sam took the warp trip to the hillside barn that belonged to Steven's Aunt and Uncle, who had passed away many years ago and was new the property of Greg Universe, the father of Steven.

They where followed by Pearl, Kyle, Neil and Steven. These two soldiers seemed to take up more space than the others, which was a rather annoying effect of them carrying the most explosive of any single squad member.

Steven's Aunt and Uncle had always been massive aviation enthusiasts and so, had a large barn that was packed with tools and parts that where designed for the purpose of building and repairing aircraft, although with enough ingenuity, anyone could make anything from the mass of materials, electronics and tools that lay dormant in the grand red residence.

After the fiasco involving Pearl and her previous attempt at breaking away from the gravitational bonds of Earth, to once again venture out to the stars in which she almost made it, Steven learned something about doing something like this, when doing something big. -almost making it was about as good as not even trying- this time they where going down and the group could not allow a failure on this mission, the stakes where high and they only had one shot.

They can't afford to fail.

After Kyle managed to find a suitable bush to complete the ritual of egesting his stomach, now an increasingly common theme to his travelling via warp pad, Neil saw the proud red structure resting atop a hill. It was surrounded with rich pastures of grass that waved in response to the wind, gently breezing through the area; which the four men couldn't help but appreciate in some way.

There was a rich, fresh countryside smell and, despite the time growing toward the inevitability of night, everyone took a moment to take in the atmosphere, to enjoy the location and take some pleasure in the beauty of the scene... That was occasionally broken by the broken gurgle of Kyle from behind the bush.

When he was done and Pearl had gotten over the notion of what he had done behind the bush, it was time to get to work. Neil went over to see Sam was looking through his scope to get a view on the surrounding area. "There's some cows out a ways, but other than that I can't see anything but green fields and some trees in the distance."

"I'll take care of them." Said Garnet, coming from seemingly nowhere, which scared Sam out of his tunnel vision and into a confused and mildly agitated stare. She didn't reply to the gaze but rather continued to look outward into the fields.

In the other direction, there was a cliff that sloped down toward the sea and Beach city itself, meeting at the dunes that buffered the ocean from the sidewalks, which on the far side lead to another cliff that rose to a top with a small lighthouse atop. The squad had been informed during their transit that the temple would be barely visible, though still very present opposite the city.

After the brief exchange, Sam decided to rejoin his squad and found that the new alliance they had going was congregating at the grand doors to the brightly painted building.

Above the archway there was a wooden sign that read _"UUU Space Travel Agency"_ which bemused the human technician as it was so poorly made that it sounded like something a father and son might do over an otherwise boring weekend, although asking about it only prompted a mildly embarrassed expression from Pearl and Steven, who both had a mutual desire to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Peridot stood on a wooden box to gain some height, although some characters present where still taller than her, regardless of the box. "Greetings fellow beings that desire to save this planet from The Cluster. I do not care what your reasons for being here are, although I do care about how helpful you are going to be to our efforts, so please, if you cannot do anything to aid our mission. Then please, just go."

No one left, it wasn't like the only ones that could even consider her offer had anywhere to go away to anyway. They all stood there, although a few more members had crossed arms and slightly annoyed looks on their faces than before.

"Good. Let us begin."

She turned around to face the grand doors and made a rather pathetic effort to open them, only to have Garnet open them for her. The doors swung open and the inner shambles that remained from their last visit gained another exposure to the shallowing sun. A whistle of admiration was heard from Kyle, who stood behind most of the marines and gems, but wished he could have a front row seat.

Kyle had an affinity for workshop projects, his garage wasn't where he stored his car or his junk, rather it was a small factory where he could make almost anything from spare parts and scrap. He was adept in welding, mechanical engineering, electrics, electrical engineering and vehicular maintenance. So seeing a workshop with this much space, this many parts... It was enough to get him giddy with joy. He felt his shoulders slump and his gaze simply ceased to look blindly into the room, he began targeting key pieces of equipment, tools and materials.

Then he was caught up from his maddened frenzy by the voice of his CO calling his name. "Kyle! Get back here, we are not making super smoker grill here, we need a plan." Pearl had moved into the space with a calm and pleased face, seemingly unfazed by Kyle's small fit, and moved to pull a large chalkboard out and into the open.

Steven set about doodling things on the board as Pearl handed a piece of chalk to Peridot, who proceeded to teat her without so much as a grain of dignity, dismissing her like a servant girl.

"You can go now."

A moment of confusion between the two ensued, Peridot expected the servant girl to just go and look pretty, Pearl expected an immediate apology, or at the very least a joke, like the sort Amethyst might pull. Neither got what they where hoping to get.

"Excuse me?" Pearl said, a vibrant bead of disgust in her voice, which Peridot completely failed to pick up.

"Oh, I said you can go now."

She clapped her hands in the fashion of a master dismissing someone beneath them, which was at least amusing to the marines stood idly by as she was considerably shorter than Pearl. Peridot turned to Steven, who had placed himself on a swivel stool and was now watching the exchange.

"How do you get her to leave?"

Steven replied. "No, she can't go, she's gotta help with the drill thing, right?"

"No no, you're confused. She's a Pearl. A pearl can't build a thing like this."

"Why not?" Said Franklin, stepping forward and making his contribution to the exchange.

"Because Pearls aren't for this! Pearls are for standing around and looking nice and holding your stuff for you. Right?" She spoke like she wasn't entirely sure herself but she had always been told these things, this was 'just how it works' after all wasn't it?

Pearl was pinching the bridge of her nose and the squad started to feel a little less easy about the green thing. It was clear that the other gems present also disagreed with the Homeworld technician.

"That's enough. If we're going to work together, you're going to have to listen to me." Pearl spoke. Peridot stood for a second, her mouth hanging slightly open.

Then she laughed. "Listen to you?" She chuckled some more before turning to Steven. "Did you teach her to talk like this?"

Steven was not as infuriated as Pearl, although was considerably more confused than the marines, who had already started to get some ideas on what was going on.

Neil suggested that there could only be so many varieties of gemstone and if there was supposed to be a species of gemstone beings, surely there would be thousands, possibly millions of the same kind of gemstone, almost like the many races of humans, commonly set apart by their country of origin.

"What do you mean?" Steven said, being the only one present that did not catch on to what Peridot was suggesting.

"She's a Pearl." She said, matter-of-factly. "She's a made-to-order servant just like the hundreds of other Pearls being flaunted around back on Homeworld."

"Wait, there's hundreds of Pearls?!" Steven said, growing weaker in the voice as he spoke and came to understand the implications this would have had. He was not aware of the fact that the Pearl before him was one-of-a-kind, a unique, rather aged and experienced Pearl that had existed for millennia without the hard-set rules of Homeworld but it was the image of so many Pearls all doing things like cleaning and teaching him things that truly set him into a state of awe.

"Well, yes." Pearl said, blushing slightly. The marines seemed to be the only ones to take mental note of the fact that her cheeks blushed a lighter blue, rather than red. They then proceeded to brush this fact under the rug as it appeared to be a fairly useless, although mildly intriguing piece of information to Franklin and Sam in particular.

Before Pearl could continue in her explanation, Peridot had managed to get behind her and start stroking at the fabric she had tied off at her back. "And she looks like a fancy one, too."

"Hundreds of Pearls." Steven said quietly to himself, looking up from his fingers with a rather blown-away expression on his face.

"So, who do you belong to anyway?"

"Nobody!" Pearl replied, snatching her tail sash back from the feeling fingers of Peridot.

"Then what are you for?" Pearl looked a little shocked at this. Before she could even open her mouth Peridot filled the space with more degrading talk.

"No matter, you can belong to me for now." She gave a short, abrupt laugh at the situation before continuing. "A Peridot with a Pearl? What would they say back home?"

Pearl was done finger scrubbing the end of her tail sash and snapped at Peridot. "Now listen here you tiny twerp. In case you've forgotten, you're on our turf now, and I didn't fight a thousand year war for this planet's independence to take orders from the likes of you!"

Peridot was done getting backtalk from the Pearl. "Excuse me? I am a natural technician and a certified kindergartener. I was made for this, you where made to take orders, not to give them!"

Neil stepped up to try and diffuse the situation before things got violent, stepping between the two. "Guys guys guys. Can't we put our differences aside, just while we build the drill that's going to save this planet from total annihilation?"

"NO!" Replied both parties at the same time, a unanimous decision to continue the battle.

"Name anything, I can build it." Said Peridot.

"I can do it too, better even!"replied Pearl.

"Robots." Steven said quietly.

No one else was talking so they all heard him say it, they just didn't know exactly what he said.

"Giant robots. You two should build giant robots. For a competition, a giant robo-competition. With prizes, giant robo-prizes." There where stars in his eyes, he seemed to be quite excited with the notion of this actually happening.

"You mean like a competition?" Pearl said, slightly confused and caught off guard from the notion Steven had put forward.

"What are these 'robots' you speak of?" Peridot said.

"They're like those funky marble things you where sending, only bigger! And you can ride them!" Steven followed his explanation with a small demonstration of him moving his arms around in a style reminiscent of an old robot, complete with sound effects.

At this point Kyle was about to burst with excitement. He loved construction work, he liked what he saw in the barn and any chance to have free roam over the bounty of resources here was something he wanted to take part in.

Peridot broke Steven's demonstration. "Ha! Building one of these 'robots' will be easy!"

"I can do it faster!" Pearl shouted, already running into the barn to begin construction.

"That's what you think!" Peridot retorted.

Kyle nudged Steven to get his attention. "Hey, can I join in?"

"Yeah! Why not?"

Kyle's face lit up. He had that buzz in his eye that Sam and Franklin knew all too well. He was going to start something that would never truly end.

Before they new it, Pearl was already done, speeding out of the barn sat atop two long, thin legs on wheels. She did a ballerina twirl and came to a stop. Pearl lifted her hair as she stood from the cockpit of a small plane that had the legs and two tubular, spindly arms with hands that had stubby, articulate fingers also protruded from either side of the body.

Before long, Peridot came out of the front door in a large green diamond shaped robot with her cockpit situated in the middle. It also had two sets of far shorter arms and legs, although they looked like they where far more heavy duty than what Pearl had produced. It didn't have any fingers, but rather a set of large heavy duty crusher claws. It was, however, far shorter than Pearl's robot.

Pearl looked to Peridot's 'vision of ultimate power' and raised a robotic arm. "Mine's taller, I win."

Then Kyle came out, or I suppose flew out would be the technical term.

He bad built a small gyro-copter with two mechanical arms attached to act as landing gear. They where far less articulate than the gem's ones but they did have a variety of gadgets attached, from a blow torch to a flash light, to magnetic grips and he even mounted his rocket launcher under the cockpit.

Kyle had that crazy look in his eye again. He flew circles around the grounded group and evened out his ride when he reached pearl's height.

Over the loud noise of his greasy machine, he shouted to her. "Hey, what are you doin' tonight? Cause' I am winning this competition!"

Pearl took a moment to consider why she didn't attempt something similar to a helicopter, but she wasn't about to loose to a single human technician that had a few minutes to throw together a functioning, flight capable vehicle with some primitive robotic arms, although she did admire his ingenuity. Even if his design looked brutally simple and rushed.

Peridot was frustrated by this. She wasn't told that flight capable machines where valid options, she felt cheated. "I call for a disqualification!" She shouted over the rapid thump of the helicopter blades. Steven was enjoying the sight too much however, even if it was reminiscent of the glider-plane he and Pearl made many months ago at the very same site; this wasn't a bad part of the memories he had here. This was a good memory when he, pearl and his dad all got along and made some great progress, having many laughs in between tests.

"Denied." He shouted, raising a hand in denial.

Peridot was about to consider some sabotage but then she saw the variety of challenges that had been brainstormed for the robotic showdown. Things would be at the very least, interesting.

The first challenge was a test of throwing objects, most namely cars. Pearl grabbed one and spun around a few times before throwing it really quite far, seeing it breach the treeline at the end of the far end of the field. Then Kyle used the magnetic grips to latch onto the roof of the car, only to find that it was a little unstable. The rotors had a hard time lifting the increased weight and he had to have a run up to get any momentum into the object, which landed about a third of the way up the field with a pathetic thud.

Peridot grabbed the car in one massive claw and proceeded to launch it beyond the horizon, which made most people slightly concerned and worried for what they had allowed her to construct. "Victory is mine!" She proudly proclaimed over the background noise of the repeating rotors.

A small tally chart line was put under her icon on the chalk board and the next challenge was to come. It was jumping.

Pearl was, again the first to go, she gracefully flew just above the barn itself, landing on the opposite side to see Peridot waiting for her to finish. Peridot launched herself from a few massive springs in the bases of her robotic feet, which propelled her high into the air, where she briefly met with Kyle, who managed to stay above her without any real strain.

A point to Kyle.

The next challenge was a sprint, which Peridot desperately tried to win but failed when her stubby little robot legs failed to keep up with Pearl's wheel-oriented transport. Even Kyle had a hard time keeping up and ultimately couldn't make the machine move any faster without tipping it into the ground, nose first.

A point to pearl.

Now, Steven had a more delicate challenge, where an egg had to be carried in a spoon along a track, without breaking. This was hard for Peridot who had nothing but large crushing claws and a lumbering stride. For Kyle it wasn't easy with his more primitive robot arms, although his machine vibrating intensely with every second made this whole challenge a difficulty for him. Pearl had far greater stability, which allowed her to hold a heavy advantage here.

Another point to pearl.

The events continued to pour through, the gems and squad letting a load off for a moment before they began the extensive work that would soon follow. The crystal gems rooted for Pearl and the squad all cheered Kyle on, even though they knew better than to encourage this kind of behaviour in Kyle. Peridot didn't have any of the same positive pressure but she didn't need their admiration just yet, she was going to show them how great she was by beating them at their own game.

The sun began to fall into the gaping maw of the horizon and the sky turned a sorrowful blue/black, with the moon and stars lighting the world around them. The night was never really an actual night, it never fell to total darkness and it never prompted anyone into stopping for the night, they wanted to be ready to lead the group in the morning.

They all slept around a campfire that they made in the main yard in front of the barn. The flames licking at the night sky as ashes and sparks danced around the group, enjoying the serene chaos that was the campfire while the only people insane enough to build machines continued to battle it out, lit by the night sky.

The sun began to rise and the others awoke from their slumber under the stars to find the machines still testing each other. Kyle was the only non-gem competing and while Steven, Garnet and Amethyst all questioned how he managed to stay so focused over such a length of time, the marines simply brushed it off for military training, his natural affiliation for sleep deprivation and the fact that he was in a desperate competition, he would never give up if he still stood a chance.

And it looked like it could still be anyone's game- they where all neck and neck.

"ALRIGHT!" Called Steven over the rumble of mechanical activity. "We need a tie-breaker, a single challenge that will separate the kid-bots from the man-bots."

Neil whispered something into the ear of the young boy and his eyes grew starry with the impressions of the idea.

"Okay, so what the final challenge will be is the ultimate test of your machines and their pilot's focus." The two gem pilots looked to Kyle with slightly worried expressions, they had never seen a human with such a desperate will for success and while Pearl almost felt like the disgruntled man should receive some credit for lasting as long as he did, Peridot did not share the notion, she wanted victory and no less.

Kyle looked more insane than ever, he had dropped his hat, wearing only the goggles and headset while his bagged and bloodshot eyes wildly darted from place to place. Pearl and Peridot couldn't help but feel a little admiration for his dedication, even if it did worry them a little.

"What you have got to do is make it down the cliff to the temple, take a piece of broken stone from the temple and being it back. The point is not only to bring the stone back the fastest but to bring a big enough piece back, the bigger the piece the more it is worth."

The trio all seemed to agree this was going to be a fitting challenge for them,a test of long distance travel and transport where size matters. Peridot would have to bring a lot of stone to stand a fair chance against the others, Kyle would have to be fast to make up for his pack of any real means of carrying large stone objects beyond a certain weight and Pearl would have to find the sweet spot between either side, being fast and finding the stone the right size.

Steven stood at the start line, where the machines lined up and awaited the trigger, a down-hill dash before a flat sprint across the beach city dunes to reach the temple, a scavenger hunt for the perfect rock and a return journey to cross the finish line.

"Ready, Set. GO!" Steven shouted over the sudden roar of mechanical activity and the floury of movement that left a massive dust trail behind.

,.,.''.','.','.',.,'.,'.',.,.','.','..,

 **The Hilltop Barn- Day 2- 09:12 Local Time**

It was anyone's game. A three way tie and while Steven just wanted everyone to get along and work together, everyone knew it would only hamper their progress if any resentment was left behind; they needed to wrap this up and finish this tournament before they wasted too much time.

Kyle went in for a nose dive down the cliff, sacrificing his elevation for immense speed before pulling up and carrying that momentum for a massive skip across the dues of the beach, reaching the temple in a matter of moments. He was the first there by a long shot, but Kyle knew he would need to keep up the pace if he wanted to win, as Pearl had already begun the dash across the dunes.

Peridot had only managed to get most of the way down the cliff although a feeling that she had stumbled rolled most of the way down was present in Kyle's mind. He got out of the gyro-copter and saw the grand eight armed statue that held the beach house. He took a short second to just look at it before remembering his objective. He scrambled for a rock of decent mass and found one about 20 Kilos heavy. He used the chopper's two arms to grasp and hold it. He wasn't too sure about how secure it was going to be but it was going to have to do for now.

Just as he rounded the corner for his return trip, pearl dashed forward and narrowly missed a head-on collision between the two. Peridot was nearing the middle of the beach. He needed to hurry up.

He was slower on the return, not having the same transfer of momentum and carrying more weight so it was now that he noticed some of the residents of Beach city watching him fly past. He saw that they all looked fairly normal, they seemed human. They where the first humans he had seen beside his own squad since leaving his Earth. He continued to push onward, he was going to ask a few questions when he got back about what exactly was different about this world from his own.

When Kyle reached the base of the cliff, he looked back and saw Pearl heaving a large boulder with her mechanical limbs, the thing had to be at least 5 times bigger... it was easily going to outweigh him, he needed to outpace her. Peridot had just cleared the cliff to reach the temple beach and while it looked like he was going to be first across the line, Kyle knew better than to push his luck.

Kyle revved up the hill to the finish line and Pearl was not far behind, picking up the pace as she moved faster along the ground, even with the increased weight.

Kyle was first across the line as he put his rock on the ground and settled the vehicle, leaving just the distant growls of Pearl's and Peridot's machines as they raced to reach the hill.

Garnet picked up his boulder and held it above her head. "Hmm. 21.3 Kilos." She said before dropping the rock and letting it embed itself in the ground.

Pearl was next, she was still travelling at full speed as she crossed the line, even if it was a full 20 seconds later. Kyle didn't realise just how slow things really where when watching like this. Pearl's rock was picked up by Garnet who held it overhead and said "I would say, 40.9 Kilos."

Pearl was more than a little disappointed, the rock was huge when she picked it up, how could it not weigh more?

Then she saw that there where parts of the rock scattered down the hillside, it had crumbled under the rapid motion of shacking and jumping... And the rocket Peridot had fired at it to reduce it's value to the Pearl. Peridot was most of the way across the beach, it turning out that legs are better for traversing the sand than wheels, as she dashed along with a boulder that must've been at least 3 times larger than Pearl's before it was scattered.

If Peridot had cheated and tampered with her rock, it would not be long before Pearl found out and when she did.

There would be hell to pay.

Peridot dragged her boulder up the hill, she knew that she wasn't racing anyone now but still acknowledged that she would be penalised for a slow delivery. Garnet tried to pick up the boulder for weighing but settled on looking at it and turning to the group to say "It's big."

Peridot began to use the mechanical fists to pump at the air while taunting supremacy over the other competitors, neither of whom took well to the action, being highly irate and tired of her incessant rambling.

Pearl moved her machine to Peridot to claim foul play to her face.

"I'm calling cheating! Peridot sabotaged my rock and made it worthless! I should have been able to claim a first place victory over her."

Peridot cut her celebrations, she would have just continued to taunt and celebrate but the lack of any associated joy from the spectators lead her to believe that this was going to hamper her success. It seemed that Steven saw the situation getting increasingly dangerous, what with Peridot moving her machine to face pearl and proceeding to belittle her... Again.

"It's just as I expected, I would never loose to a Pearl and a human." She laughed insultingly "I mean come on! Who seriously thought this was going to end any other way?"

Kyle wasn't just slightly hurt by this, he felt betrayed. Surely he had gained some respect from Peridot but she talked about him like everything he had proven with his ingenuity and dedication was pathetic, below that of what Pearl had achieved. Even with the fact that Kyle had functioned without a break, without food, water or rest overnight in a competition that had taken a strain on him that no gem could have possibly understood, with the exception of Steven.

Steven saw the confrontation before him and made for a breakup before things could get violent.

"Guys! Giant robots shouldn't have arguments! Look, Lets just consider the times involved and see what that does to the results!"

They weren't buying it. Kyle was now trying to fly in Peridot's face to get his words in, arguing alongside Pearl in this case.

The squad watched in awe, they had never seen giant robots before their visit to this planet, yet alone giant robots having an argument that could turn violent. Even Franklin didn't know what to do, there was no point in trying to stop Kyle now he was in his seat or he would get bitter, much like the time he found a very illegal shotgun on the battlefield and proceeded to abuse it and take down enemy tanks and even a jet with it. They had to wait until debriefing for them to finally get him to let it go for its destruction.

All they could do was watch and hope he didn't end this world prematurely.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Cried out Neil, who had not known of Kyle's involving with the grenade shooting shotgun. Neil stood next to Steven, who had stepped forward to deliver his message. "Peridot, just admit it, we saw you do it."

Pearl looked triumphantly at Peridot, who shrank slightly in her cockpit before re-seating herself to sit a little higher and retort.

"No one said I couldn't use anything in my arsenal to help me win!"

"And no one said I couldn't just kill the competition but I didn't break that unspoken rule! Generally, you don't fire rockets at other competitors, you sack of shit!" Screamed Kyle, a man known to fire rockets at other soldiers on the battlefield, irrespective of how the they moved around the area.

Peridot didn't take kindly to this... She glared at him and moved toward him so that their cockpits where face to face, the pilots at arm's reach of each other.

Then Peridot slowly leaned into his personal space, invading his cockpit, while remaining on her own. She spoke softly and tenderly, barely audible over the noise of the helicopter blades and the engine still powering them.

"You are... Such, a maSSIVE CLOD! I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS SUCH A THING AS A CLOD AS BIG AS YOU ARE, FOR A MEATSACK, YOU DO A FINE JOB OF-"

Kyle snapped, he punched her in the face. Right now, he didn't care about how small she was, how old she was; he had no idea. He just had enough.

Pearl gasped for a moment, then cheered in encouragement before moving to join the mechanical melee. Steven shouted discouragement for these actions, as did Neil, who seemed to prefer maintaining a reasonable team and somewhat disliked the idea of Kyle getting just crazy enough to fire the rocket tube under the chopper's cockpit. Neil went for the radio contact with Kyle to try and convince him to stop.

"Kyle! Its Neil, Listen to me, you have got to stop now, before things get out of hand."

At first nothing happened as Kyle flew around in tight circles, trying to get repair tool runs on the hull Peridot's machine. Then he levelled out and gained some height before a response came through.

"Good morning!" The voice was that of a mock-secretary taking notes for her boss. "This is the office of Kyle Davis, please leave a note at the sound of the tone!" Then the disconnection tone came through, he had cut communications with the ground crew.

"He just cut the comms!" Neil shouted to his squad mates, they didn't give him any orders but rather continued to watch the one sided brawl ensue. Peridot tried to block the incoming strikes but things weren't going her way, every time she moved to swing at Pearl's machine, she glided to the side and every time she went for a swipe at the gyro-copter, it was either too fast or she was stopped by pearl's intervening. She had to stop this somehow.

Peridot had no other weapons in her arsenal, but that didn't stop her from making a new weapon for herself to use.

"HEY PEARL!" She shouted over the noise, hoping it would carry. "YOU ARE THE WORST SERVANT GIRL I HAVE EVER SEEN, YOU ARE SUCH A DULL CLOD, YOU MAKE THAT CLOD OVERHEAD LOOK PRETTY SHINY!"

Pearl didn't think that poorly of Neil, but she still had a few reservations about humans being above her, if it wasn't because she was already engaged in a rage-filled batter-fest she would've reconsidered her next move.

Pearl gave an infuriated growl and screeched a rage-filled response. "I AM A PEARL AND I AM GOING SHOW YOU WHAT THAT MEANS!"

She lept high into the air and did a forward flip to swing her right wheel-foot into a high momentum dive for Peridot. Peridot waited until the perfect moment, a second too early and she would miss and Pearl would get an idea on what she was trying to do, a second too late and she wouldn't have a chance to try it again.

She clasped her claw over Pearl's right leg, stopping her dead overhead. A wicked grin grew on Peridot's face and pearl realised her grave mistake all too late.

Peridot took the end of the leg and grabbed the other leg, holding them in one claw. She then shook Pearl out of the cockpit and began to swing the now driver less robot around like a bat, eventually swinging and hitting Kyle's chopper, causing him to loose control. He lost power and began to plummet from the sky, spinning as he went.

Slamming into the ground, the squad wondered if he was going to walk from a crash like that. Then a dark silhouette against the flaming wreckage could be seen heaving something from the crash came stumbling over to the middle of the main site for this battle.

Kyle had disconnected his SMAW rocket launcher from the chopper and readied it for a shot at Peridot. He was consumed with something.

Possessed.

It was known among Sam and Franklin alone that when he made something, he was totally and completely proud of it, he would be willing to do anything to protect it from anyone's harmful grasp or careless stupidity; a likely reason for why he could never hold a relationship for longer than a week before someone left in a fit of rage and misunderstanding.

This chopper was his baby, the first thing to give him a reasonable sense of security and joy since he landed in this hole of a world and the green woman that stood before him, clad in a monstrous green diamond suit and stood in the robot that had killed his joy.

Neil should've known better than to disturb him in this state but he knew for certain that this would only worsen their situation. He sprinted over to Kyle, who was fully fixated on the taunting menace that stood over his comrade, passed out after being flung from the cockpit. Kyle pulled the trigger and the flame began to spew from the exhaust of the weapon just as Neil tackled him.

The rocket moved far off course and struck a cow that had wandered back onto the fields after Garnet had scared them off. This made Steven sad.

"STOP!" Steven cried.

Everything just halted, Peridot didn't notice the missile fly to her side but heard this call of distress. Kyle and Neil where about to start their own brawl when they both heard Steven and stopped to look at him, to listen to him.

"ALL I WANTED WAS FOR ALL OF US TO GET ALONG AND HAVE A GREAT TIME, AND ALL I GOT WAS TWO NEW FRIENDS AND SOMEONE LIKE A MOTHER TO ME TRY TO KILL EACH OTHER!" He began to let his voice drop, as did he allow the tears to flow from his eyes.

He blinked a few away and weakly continued voicing his disagreement with the combat.

"I just wanted us to get along. I wanted us to have some fun and get to know each other a little better. We're supposed to helping each other!"

Neil looked to Kyle who seemed more fatigued than ever, he had deep, dark bags under his bloodshot eyes and a slightly pained expression on his face.

Then he began to do something none of the squad mates had ever seen him do.

He began to cry.

Kyle grabbed hold of Neil in an embrace and began to sob into his chest, slumping against him. Neil just held him and tried to ignore the absurdity of the whole situation, he felt his emotions twinge slightly but managed to keep a strong face on, after all he hadn't lost anything of particular value, nor was he as lost as Kyle seemed to be.

Peridot heard this and felt bad for Steven, something she was not at all used to. She had only just gained this new friend recently and so to fail him felt bad. She felt herself sink slightly into her seat, eventually turning to hiding in the cockpit and sobbing to herself quietly. Pearl had regained consciousness and had managed to catch onto the second half of Steven's speech but that was all that she needed to hear. She took her responsibilities very seriously.

She knew Steven was an impressionable young boy and that she should have known better than to let old Homeworld grudges get this far out of hand. She had responsibilities as did everyone else and she felt as though she had failed.

Kyle cleaned himself up and looked to Neil to see him looking at him tenderly, with almost mothering eyes. This was disturbing to Kyle, he wasn't fully sure why he was crying in the first place, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Kyle gave him a bland look, now he had gotten over the loss of his chopper project and was done feeling sorry for himself, he had to say something to Steven.

Breaking the bond between soldiers, he spoke in a hard tone, like he was a stern father in a father-son relationship, "Speak a single word of this to Sam and I will gut you alive and make you into my next project."

Okay, maybe not quite a father-son relationship, maybe more like two brothers, a larger brother that had to stay tough for the little one, but in this case it was hard to tell who was who.

Kyle had no real contact with Steven prior to this so did not truly understand why he felt such a sadness when he failed the young boy so badly.

"I'm sorry little man. I guess I got a little too dragged into the competition. I didn't even want to lead the design! I don't know how to build a drill! I mean I just wanted to make something cool. I guess what I am trying to say I am sorry I ruined this for you, I should've known better than to let things get this far out of hand."

Kyle left and Pearl stepped up to have her words with Steven. She kneeled down to his level and put a hand on his shoulder. "Steven, I-" Her eyes began to well up but she was quickly cut off by a hug from Steven, who was just glad she was okay for now.

.,.,.,.,',''','.','.',.','.','.,,.,.,.,

Peridot sat, huddled in the hull of her machine, unmoving as of the end of the conflict, only detectable by the faint sobbing and sniffling heard from inside.

Kyle was the first to come out to see where she had disappeared to, or rather had not moved from.

He looked in through the hull window and found her on the floor, he wanted to comfort her, it was the least he could do for trying to kill her.

He clambered into the machine and curled up in the opposite corner of the cockpit, which was strangely spacious. Peridot was the first to speak.

"What do you want you meat clod?" She was still teary, trying to stifle down her emotions to make herself seem stronger. Then he moved next to her, he joined her on the floor and hugged her closely.

At first she began to retreat as she didn't know what to do or what this was but then she began to like it, it began to feel nice, warming and comforting.

"Sorry for trying to kill you over a competition." He said to her, not sure about the sincerity of how he said it. She still wasn't sure about this, if she wasn't in such a state, she would have told him to get out so she could crush him. But right now she didn't know what to do. She needed to say sorry to Steven and to Pearl for putting them all at such risk and for letting her Homeworld brainwashing get the better of her.

But most importantly, they had wasted enough time bickering over who should be the one to design the drill, they never got that task over with and now they where a day down with nothing to show for it but a large mound of rubble and an explosively dispersed cow.

"Appreciated." she replied. "You're not a bad technician, for a human."

 **A/N**

 **I am soo sorry for that... I can't write action scenes for shit... I mean really, if you want me to, I will re-write that to be better, have continuity, less confusion... It would delay the story by a fair bit but if it was as cringe worthy as it felt to write, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.***

 ***fun fact, that was the only time I have ever accidentally hit the caps-lock key and thought _That's not bad..._**

 **As for Kyle and Peridot, we shall see what happens between them, in case you couldn't tell, I thought Peridot and Kyle would get along the best on long term, as they are both technical savants and are kind of paranoid about something (or at least psychotic) but don't take that as a guide for what may end up going with them... Even I don't know yet...**

 **The next chapter will have some pretty big development and could be a big... and I mean BIG one. The first chapter alone was 9,000 words and this next one could be upwards of 12,000 (could be a little less or a lot more- like 24,000 more... I know right?)... Let me know if you would rather this was divided into two or even three sections. I expect that this whole story could end up being about 50,000 words or maybe something like 60,000 words in the case of a large finale...**

 **Remember! If you want shorter chapters more often (and I suppose it makes editing a whole lot easier) then let me know! Otherwise I will continue to write things with a minimum of 6,000 words a piece!**

 **Let me know if you would look forward to any specific things in the story or just have any ideas for what could happen/what you want ot happen and special thanks to:**

 **Pink Power- Thank you so much for being the first to comment, don't you worry, we haven't seen the last of the RF just yet...**

 **FrankTheKiller155- Wow, thank you so much for the review, I was thinking the same thing but then I found that when no one is around to make the content I want, it's easier to make it myself, even if I can't enjoy it quite as much.**

 **and the Guest- Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to have pleased you.**

 **You have helped make this story even better and you have made my day with your presence on my page.**

 **Thank you.**


	4. Chapter 4- The shit

**WE BACK BOYS! (and humans of a female persuasion, also)**

 **Sorry about the delay, bad ideas and all that cancerous stuff... More on it at the end- ON WITH THE STORY!**

 **The Hilltop Barn – Day 3 – 14:34 Local Time**

"Log date 7 11 2. It is the third rotation of the Earth since the commencement of a _collaborative_ attempt to stopping the cluster." Spoke Peridot into her newly acquired tape recorder, clenched in her right hand while her other rested behind her back. "It has been a trying and difficult journey, trying to survive with such isanities as the so-called _Delta squad_ , a group of trans-dimensional humans that appeared at, strangely the same time as the beginning of the _collaborative_."

"The human technician of _The Delta Squad_ could prove useful to us as he shows a good capacity for understanding in the ways of human and gem technologies, it is a shame he is trapped in such a fragile human body, his mind could be of some great use to Homeworld."

Pearl called into the barn where Peridot was skulking and talking to her new tape recorder.

"I have finished drawing up the blueprints for the drill head! Peridot, if you could come take a look at this?" She said, poking her head around the end of the chalkboard.

It was another bright and glorious day on the hilltop, the fresh and crisp summer breeze shoved a variety of different flavours to Peridot's nose, much to her distaste.

Sam and Franklin had salvaged the cow from Kyle's most royal of all fuck-ups for steaks and streaks, which turned out to be very nice when char-grilled over the campfire. They where both sat, chatting ideas and thoughts with Kyle on the world around them and their situation.

While the traditional delta squad would have made their efforts to stay true to the mission, they had all but given up on planning for a way out, their best bets would be to just help the colourful alien women and hope they can help back before things went too far.

They had 4 days until the airstrike and they knew it would take 3 day's drive to get to Bluestone 42, they would need to either finish with the drill and escape the next day or they would have to find another way out and home, but timelines never stopped Delta before, they weren't going to give up if there was still a chance.

Peridot had assured them that the warp was a fairly 'simple science' although she was the one that didn't really care that much for them, although she still felt that she owed Neil something for saving her on their first meeting and to Kyle who was, at the very least somewhat savvy with the concepts the technologies involved.

Neil was spending time with the gem Garnet, helping her chase away any other cows that could get hurt, or worse…

"So get this guys. When I was flying across the dunes with my payload, I got a closer look at the city and its residents, and guess what?" Said Kyle, with excitement in his voice.

"What?" Replied Sam, more annoyed than anything. It was he and Franklin that had to clean up the cow from Kyle's moment of hysteria, while Kyle slept and recovered from his unreasonably long period of obsession. They all knew that was just one of the dangers of having Kyle around, especially considering the circumstances.

"I saw people in the city." He said, with a face that looked like he had just told his girlfriend he won the lottery and was waiting expectantly on the reaction.

"You mean like humans or gems?" Said Franklin, the most gem-savvy of the squad, as he listened to Garnet and Pearl to gather what information on the gem species and the world as best as he could.

"I mean humans guys, we aren't the only humans on this planet!" Kyle was excited, he expected his squaddies to be also excited by this but they were not fazed. They already knew, having listened to the crystal gems when they could, while not being distracted by machines and competition, not like Kyle was.

Sam talked to Kyle, Franklin still playing his role in the exchange. "Did you not think that maybe Steven was at least partly human? I mean the gems call him a half-human half-gem... I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean to him but that means there has to be SOME human activity at least, right?" He sounded almost like he was telling Kyle off for not being as observant as he could have been.

It was at this moment that Neil returned to the group, completing the squad once again.

"You found any more cows?" Said Franklin jokingly.

"Only a couple, I have a feeling that we are going to need a guy to watch out for the moo machines. I'm telling you they aren't suited for forest life and they'll come right back into the fields the moment we stop making noise out here."

A moment of silence fell over the group as they absorbed the information and considered the possibilities of the next topic of conversation.

Kyle started for the group. "I think Pearl and Peridot must be about done with the designs."

"What makes you say that?" Said Sam, turning around to see if he could find the cue that lead Kyle onto this conclusion.

The rest of the squad promptly followed suit to watch as Garnet dragged Peridot out of the safety of the barn with clipped a harness to the green creature, tying her to a fence. "What? What'd I say?" Peridot called to the towering gem without any impact as she walked away from Peridot.

On Garnet's return, Franklin talked to her hoping for an answer to his question. "What's all that about?"

She replied, still expressionless but with an almost unnatural twang of annoyance to her voice.

"She wanted me to unfuse, said it made her feel _uncomfortable_. Her having free reign over the area made me feel _uncomfortable_."

With that they collectively looked to see Peridot struggling to reach for a microwave set on the grassy floor, just beyond the reach of her unaugmented limbs.

Most of the squad felt a prang of joy at seeing the small angry creature so viciously prying at the microwave, now trying her luck with her feet in an attempt to move the microwave closer.

Kyle made for Peridot, obviously feeling a slight twang of sympathy for her struggling while the rest of the squad moved for the chalkboard, ready for the day's tasks and challenges. Getting there, Pearl explained the day's objectives.

"As you can see here, we need at least three modules to complete, the capsule for the pilot (or pilots), the drill motor and stabiliser system and finally, the drill head itself, which could prove its own kind of trouble considering the conditions it will have to stand up to."

There was a list of parts needed, everything was all planned out and now it was just a matter of piecing it all together.

Pearl set to taking apart a large jet turbine that was situated near the barn while the three marines set about scavenging for particular components in the barn itself.

Kyle, the most capable one of the squad when it came to this sort of stuff but instead, was helping Peridot disassemble a microwave for its magnetron.

"It looks like we need some sort of leverage optimiser." Peridot said, frustrated at the need for more tools and help; she was especially against the need for dependence on others, though she did not mind the presence of Kyle quite as much.

Peridot had to acknowledge that Kyle wasn't exactly an inferior individual, for a human he was really something to behold in the eyes of the technician. She saw potential in what he was capable of but he was limited by a pitifully short existence and the need to constantly feed, sleep and excrete; much to Peridot's distaste.

"What? You mean a screwdriver?" Said Kyle, a slight grin pulling to the left of his face. He kneeled over and picked a flathead screwdriver off of the floor before handing it to her. Amethyst caught on to the end of the exchange and began to think of ways of poking fun at the green being.

"What was that?" Said Amethyst with Steven stood beside her. "Leverage optimiser?"

"That's what I said." Peridot replied.

Amethyst laughed in a mocking tone that Peridot seemed to be completely ignorant of the tone and continued in her workings of taking the microwave apart. When Amethyst was done laughing and snorting, she decided to continue the exchange.

"Okay, what's this?" She said, pointing to her nose.

"A sense sponge."

Steven was confused, Amethyst laughed uncontrollably and even Kyle had to laugh a little bit. It seemed to the soldier that spending more and more time around these characters was making him more childish in nature, and he didn't have any objections to that. As far as he cared, enjoying things more than before and feeling more free where the only things he could witness and he was fine by that.

Amethyst was done before long and started her next focus of humour. "Okay, and this?" She said, holding one of her eyelids open to show a rather large eyeball.

"Vision sphere." Peridot replied in a considerably more methodical fashion.

"Peridot, that's-" Steven made to correct her, still not picking up on the humour that Amethyst was enjoying before he was cut off by the lilac character.

"Wait, wait, Steven." She took a moment to compose herself. "Peridot. These?" She said, wiggling her fingers in Peridot's general direction.

"Touch stumps." She replied, considerably more annoyed at the continued distraction from her work and the sheer waste of time by the lilac gem.

"These?" Amethyst said, pointing to her feet.

"Gravity connectors."

"And this?" She said, pointing to her posterior.

"THAT'S YOUR BUTT." Peridot shouted in reply. Steven finally saw the joke and laughed alongside Amethyst while Kyle enjoyed a few light hearted laughs on the side of the conversation. "All right, that's enough, we should probably get back to doing… Uhh, something." Kyle said as he stood above the group.

Steven and Amethyst where still recovering from the final statement of Peridot. "Oh man Peridot, you're killing me!" Steven said, smacking the microwave case as he laughed.

"I am not! That would violate our truce agreement!"

Kyle took a moment to look down at the defensive little creature and almost thought it was kind of cute, like something he would imagine his fully fictional daughter would say if she took after her (currently daughterless) father. A little grin made its way onto his face, he supposed this wasn't the worst place to be stranded, even if he didn't ever make it back home.

"No no no. You're funny!" Amethyst said between laughs, dismissing the idea that Peridot was actually harming Steven, which wasn't the most irrational thing to come out of her mouth since she first reformed, just prior to the mission that brought the crystal gems and delta squad together.

"Funny?" Peridot replied, not entirely sure if she was sure what the word meant.

It was then that Pearl showed up to put an end to the distraction that was Amethyst's interaction with anything sentient. "Peridot, if you can get the magnetron out of that microwave, we'll have everything we need. Well, except for the drill head."

"Why don't I just get an injector drill head from the Kindergarten?" She replied. Peridot knew that despite the age of the technology in the Kindergarten, it was still going to be both faster and more durable than anything they could piece together using spare plane parts.

"Oh." Pearl said, a little put off by the idea but still seeing the potential applications and the time they could save. "Well I suppose that could work."

Before anyone could say anything else Garnet called over to the group, apparently following the conversation from a distance. "She's not going to the Kindergarten without a chaperone."

"What? You've got to be joking!" Peridot replied, almost looking offended at the prospect of being so distrusted with the mission.

"You'll know when I'm joking." Garnet said, dropping a stack of tyres on the ground, hinting at their probable application.

Kyle thought this was hilarious. He laughed loudly enough to catch the attention of everyone that was already locked in conversation. When he stopped, he saw that everyone was watching him, he made for something to move the awkward gazes off of him. "Uhh, why don't I go with her?" He said.

Franklin and Neil made over for them, as did Garnet. "I don't think you should." Said Franklin. "Neil's the only one of us with any experience in the Kindergarten and I think we still need you to put the rest of this stuff together over here."

"And besides." Added Franklin, "The only fast way there is by Warp pad and we all know how you take to it."

Neil Shuddered slightly at the memories but reminded that this time, he didn't have to be the only one with anything to protect himself with. "Well if I am going back there, can I take some others with me in case of another attack?" Neil had no obligation to go but he saw the sensibility in it.

Amethyst grabbed Steven and pulled him closer, she was enjoying this a little too much right now so this was a good opportunity to keep the laughs coming. After all, she was from this Kindergarten in particular, she could act as a guide around the place to find a drill in good nick. "Why don't I, Steven and Neil all go with her?"

Garnet looked over the group before turning to gaze at Neil who just stared back into the abyss of her visor. "Hmm… Approved."

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 **Russian/Chinese Void Gate facility – 08:20 Local Time**

The facility had gained some interesting findings from the test involving the American soldiers. For one, they now knew that organic matter could pass through the Void Gate without being annihilated and they even managed to scavenge the Jeep the Americans used to get to the facility back out of the void. It was still in working order, beside that fact that the engine had stopped working due to a lack of oxygen in the air intake.

Despite their best efforts, it was hard to keep the gate open for more than 30 seconds without putting a massive strain on the power consumption of the facility and blowing out a few circuits, although it was argued that the size of the Void Gate was largely the reason for this problem.

The real mystery for the scientists involved here was just what happened to the soldiers they sent in? There was no evidence that they were ever there, not even ammunition from their weapons or even the guns themselves, just the Jeep survived as far as they could tell.

But now was the time to solve some mysteries, they had studied the warp itself well enough for the time being to produce their own void suits, looking a lot like old cosmonaut space suits, designed for low pressure, low oxygen and low temperature environments.

They wanted to find out if they could make use of radio contact and munitions in the warp, and so two members of staff had been suited up and prepared for the undertaking of the first Void Gate trip to involve going to the warp and returning just 1 minute after the Void Gate closed before returning.

The procedure was fairly well documented now, the suits had ear protection for the soldiers during the start-up sequence, arcs of electricity were flung across the space and the air and gravity began to leave the chamber, the soldiers had some gas oriented propulsion systems in place to allow them to move around in the warp and so, when the air left the chamber and they were sucked out, the two were given one last radio contact from the main control room.

"Just a note from the higher ups, they said if you do not see the Void Gate open within 4 minutes, we may be experiencing some rather large technical difficulties, the suits you are wearing only has air for 30 minutes due to limitations on what we could get this far into the desert."

"If things get dire and you begin to run out of air, there are suicide pills available, remember, a slow and painful suffocation is not preferable over a quick death in the form of a pill."

With that final and rather unsettling message, the Void Gate closed and the warp encompassed the two soldiers. Instead of talking and wasting time, they knew it would be better to just get the testing over with.

The first, a soldier, a 21 year old man named Alexandir Mertivoff readied his AK-12 assault rifle and began to fire into the void, finding that the whole magazine fired with enough recoil to send him moving backward as he sailed past his coworker. It appeared that the lack of any air didn't stop the bullets, despite this, the low pressure had muffled the sound.

The second, a technician, a 51 year old man named Maximillian Grigori took a grenade and held it out. He pulled the pin and pushed it away from him, a few seconds later the grenade exploded, though the sudden spike in pressure expected from the explosion. Rather instead it just contained itself for a few seconds before the smoky plume it would have produced simply died out.

Then it seemed to just disappear into nothingness as if it was never there.

"Interesting." Commented Max.

They floated and conducted their last tests but as time began to pass, things grew increasingly worrying.

Maximillian radioed to his comrade. "Hey Alex? How are we looking for time on this mission? Wasn't the gate supposed to be opened by now?"

"I think things could have gone bad. It's been 2 minutes already, they should've opened the gate by now."

Maximillian replied. "Maybe they are having communications troubles, or the power conduits need replacing… Again…"

Alex didn't know an awful lot about the void gate beyond that it exists and that it drinks up power from the facility's nuclear reactor faster than anything else known in the Russian Federation. Max had been involved in its construction, he had experience in its maintenance and he still wondered why he had been chosen for this mission in particular; Alex was the soldier, he had the training for this sort of stuff, Max was just a technician.

Another several minutes passed and things seemed to get tighter around them, a small warning light appeared in the corner of both character's visions, indicating 2 minutes until the air supply would run dry.

"I don't think they are coming back for us Alex."

"I was starting to think the same, myself."

A short silence in the void before Max began to think and talk some more.

"You, know, it's great that we got to be a part of this isn't it?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, of all the people that ever walked the earth, how many of them knew the earth was round? Not too many until our day. How many do you think knew about the Void Gate project? Even less so, you could probably name most of them. And of all those people, we got to be some of the first to experience it first-hand."

"We'll be experiencing death first-hand pretty soon."

"But isn't that great, in our short and pathetic lives, we have achieved so much more than almost every other person on our planet's history and even if we do die here today, it'll be a high point for me."

"Well… I guess you're right, even if this is something that will never get out beyond just us, I suppose that is all you can want to get out of something like this. It's better than just living a quiet, boring and insignificant life and while we'll never get to tell anyone of this, just like we won't be remembered for anything like this, we'll still die with our memories in our minds. At least we never suffered from something like dementia or Alzheimer's."

Another silence that lasted well too long encapsulated them.

"I think I am ready Alex." Said Max, "I think I am ready to end my song."

Max held the pill in his gloved hand. It promised a fast and painless end, a final stroke that would put his story to a close, in an instant that would end all troubles he had. He took his helmet off and swallowed the pill, as difficult as it was in zero gravity and with the moisture in his throat freezing around it. A few moments passed and it was the final minute of air left for Alex.

Alex saw the light of his comrade blink out and despite what he said to him, he struggled to remember the moment, the words he used to comfort himself and the last wisdom he departed onto him.

He wanted something to happen but he wasn't sure what he wanted to happen, if the void gate opened, he would be questioned as to why his comrade was dead, if they had more air than they were told, then Max died for no reason.

Then a light shone by, placing itself between the two floating entities. The light quickly pierced the world around him and brightly flowed upward, almost pulsing as it went. A song of sorts chimed through the space around Alex, the sound was high and seemed to radiate a sense of mild joy into what was left of his life.

There was nothing left to do but to step into the unknown.

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 **The Kindergarten – Day three – 14:45**

Neil was stood atop the warp pad and memories quickly flowed back into his mind from the last time he was there, the first time he arrived on this strange world. He scanned the area for activity, his sidearm at the ready with C4 in his back pocket and a whole lot of bullets in case he needed them.

The air was still just as cold and bitter as the first time he breathed the air, but this time the entire area seemed to be a little darker, whether this was due to the time of day or maybe it was as Steven saw it, the place just gets worse the longer it's left.

His idea was to scavenge his U-100 MK5 from the rubble to see if it was still in working order and if it was, good. If it wasn't, then he would have to find another way to defend himself against larger gem mutants; after all he only had so many bricks of C4.

The group made their way down the slope and to the nearby heap of stones and rubble, pieces of broken gem injectors lying dormant around them.

"Hey Amethyst, I don't suppose you could clear away some of this mess could you?" Neil called to the Lilac gem.

"Sure, but you got to remember this is my place, try not to destroy any more of my stuff. Got it?" She replied, half joking, half serious.

Neil had been informed of Amethyst's heritage in the Kindergarten and as he saw it, she must've been pretty tough to live and grow in a place that was rife with gem mutants like it was, and while Amethyst was born with certain combat techniques already in her mind, along with the fact that when she emerged, the gem mutants where still largely incubating, lying dormant beneath the surface, she still must've had it pretty rough for her first years.

Amethyst saw no need to disclose this information to him, however.

After a few cracks of the whip to destroy and cut larger boulders before using the same tool to pull away large pieces of rubble, the prize was displayed before the human soldier. His U-100 lay in the dust, it looked like it had seen some real action, even if it was just sitting in the rubble for the last few days and even if the body looked beaten and worn, it looked no worse than some of the other's guns, which appeared to be worse-for-wear. He had to test the firing mechanism or it would be very bad if he loaded a full magazine into the gun only to have it pathetically shoot off one or two bullets before halting and jamming on him.

So he chambered a single bullet and fired into the air.

*KA-DOOoooosh*

The noise of the bullet in the near silent air was something for the purple character to behold as she had never seen a gun, yet alone heard one fire.

The silencer on the end of the barrel still worked, the bullet seemed to fire well enough and the sound was not indicative of any problems. The sound of the bullet piercing the air was not unfamiliar to Steven or Peridot, but to Amethyst it was something new.

He loaded a fresh magazine and chambered the next round. "Looks like I'm back in business."

It was at this moment that they realised the newcomer on the ridge… Because Neil had just been shot.

The loud crack of rapid assault rifle fire sprayed into the group, although most of the shots where aimed for Neil. Despite the lack of hits, one bullet managed to lodge itself into Neil's upper right arm, causing him to drop his U-100 on the floor and to dash for cover, as was standard procedure, if his training was anything to go by.

The gems quickly followed suit behind the same boulder.

"ARGH. FUCK!" Neil exclaimed, this was the first time he had been shot. He had been tazered before but this was nothing like that, this was its own kind of pain as he could feel the intrusive nature of the 7.56mm round in his bone, nearly shattering it.

For now his arm was all but useless and the newcomer, still an obvious threat he continued to lay down suppressive fire onto the rock they hid behind.

Steven was terrified, he wasn't used to this kind of world where people can have direct intentions to kill each other and any others around them, even if it was because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Steven still wanted to stop this, he wasn't in the mood for more violence, especially after the robot fight on the previous day.

"STOP!" He shouted, as he popped himself above the boulder. The stranger stopped shooting, although he still held his weapon to the boy and spoke in a language that was not familiar to anyone but Neil, and he couldn't translate; only identify.

"Мне очень жаль, я пошел далеко, чтобы развернуться сейчас, у меня нет выбора ... Что бы Макс теперь говорят, что со мной?"

,.,.,'.',.','.,','.','.,'.',.',.',.','.,''.,'.,'.,'.,'.,.,.,'.'.,'.'.,.

It didn't make any sense to any of them, he seemed to be panicking or having his own little breakdown. At no point during his prep was he told to expect pillars of light, yet alone one of the American soldiers to still be alive! This was big news for the project but he had no way of getting back.

Then Max's last words began to sink into Alex's mind. Alex began to feel like it would be pointless continuing, he was a dead man anyway.

Alex couldn't speak a word of English, he only ceased to fire because it was just a kid, he had his morals too and they were tearing at him for his terrible decision.

 _What if that kid and the other children aren't what I think they are? What if they are just as dangerous as the American, who has still got his weapons, his equipment... This is bad if I know what bad is._

"А ТЫ ГОВОРИШЬ ПО РУССКИ?" He shouted over the space, which garnered only confused conversation behind the boulder, the eerie silence filling the space.

Then a screech so chilling it made a few of the people present turn a few shades paler.

More gem mutants had arrived, attracted to the sound of gunfire and negotiation, they had found the Russian man and made for him.

,.,.,.,'','.','.','.,'.',.',.',.','.','.,'.,'.',.','.,.,.

"We've got to help him." Said Steven. "Even if he doesn't speak any English, I'm sure Pearl can find a way around it and if she can, we might have a lead on the warp thing to help you guys get home."

Neil wasn't of the same mind-set, he was preoccupied with stemming the flow of blood from his wound and the nightmarish creatures that were closing in on their position. "I get that you just want to help people but right now, this may not be the perfect time for something like this, what we need to do is get back to the warp pad and come back with backup."

Amethyst was interested in getting a look at the stranger and finding out about where the gem mutants were. Looking over the crest she saw the helmeted shape of the person and the rush of creatures that where coming from above the ravine, almost pouring into their space.

The Russian didn't hear the gem mutants coming until some larger debris began to fall around him, Steven and Amethyst moved to protect him as he turned his attention to the monstrous beings quickly surrounding him.

"Какого черта эти вещи должен быть?!" Amethyst summoned her whip and used it like an extension of herself, grabbing a large rock and swinging it at the creatures like a stone mace. Steven simply put himself between the mutants and the Russian and summoned his shield, holding off some of the smaller and less significant mutants that Amethyst couldn't deal with right away.

The Russian was dumbstruck, he had no idea what was going on, first there where these monstrosities that came straight from books depicting the most disturbing things he could comprehend.

Then there was the not only peculiar, but frightening case of the children that had some kind of power that allowed them to combat the aforementioned mutants with surprising efficiency.

Then it all went to shit.

A colossal monster of a gem mutant began to crest over the edge of the valley. Peridot had managed to get up to the warp pad, being able to slip past any resistance due to her low profile and managed to crawl up the hill. She beckoned the others to follow. "COME ON! GET UP HERE ALREADY YOU CLOD-SACKS!" She called down to her, still very preoccupied comrades.

Amethyst turned to see her atop the mound, waiting. She grabbed the Russian, not caring that he dropped his equipment, much like Neil did when he first arrived in the Kindergarten. She did the same with Steven, holding them both under each arm and jumping up the hill.

Looking back they noticed Neil was still down there, behind the boulder and he was still losing blood.

 **A/N**

 **Welp.. There it is... The first of a few parts that I will be uploading really rather rapidly from now onward... We're talking at LEAST twice a week... Until I run out of material again...**

 **I managed to write about 17,000 words of story since the last chapter and while I am sure the 5,000-7,000 word chapters where very much your style, this was going to be a bit much... New ones will be between 3,000-6,000 words a piece... Or I'll try anyway...**

 **I got a load of writer's block trying to keep it going and (you may have gained a whiff of it in the last chapter) but writing just became really hard and tedious... The product felt really unsubstantial and like I was just waffling and bumbling around with it... So I have the next 3 chapters already written up and now it's just edit, check and revise before uploads...**

 **More regular, more digestible and more enjoyable (hopefully)**

 **Anyway... There are some pretty big changes coming and hopefully, I can get to finishing this story sooner or later, then we'll see what happens after that...**

 **Special thanks to everyone that has written reviews and began to follow and favourite this story! It's great to have the support from you guys to encourage me to carry on this story...**

 **Thanks**

 **Mein Kapatin**


	5. Chapter 5- Hits the fan

**The Kindergarten - Day 3 - 14:58 Local Time**

Neil held a brick of C4 in his left hand while the detonator was still dangled on his belt. It was now or never, the colossal being began to fall down into the fracture in the earth that was the Kindergarten.

Neil removed his helmet, throwing it to the floor. He took his sidearm from its holster, he took his backpack off and dropped it as he pulled the remaining bricks of C4 from their place of storage.

 _Looks like this is it… I wonder if this is some kind of new record?.._

Neil struggled to stand up, pulling himself to look above the bullet-riddled cover. He could see the gems and even the Russian, looking very confused and afraid without his helmet on, all stood on the warp pad, waiting for him.

He called to the others, waiting expectantly for him to get up and run to meet them, he didn't see this ending in that way. "JUST GO! THERE'S NO TIME FOR THIS!" Neil yelled over shrieking space of creatures.

Steven tried to jump for him, to make some kind of contact before Amethyst grabbed him, stopping him from endangering himself, Peridot at his other side.

The Russian looked onward, standing still and watching the entire exchange before him. Peridot initiated the return to the Hilltop Barn warp pad and in a flash of light a faint chime of sound, they were gone, leaving Neil with nothing but the sound of screeches and a deep and foreboding, rumbling growl left to fill the bitter air.

 _Looks like it's just you and me…_

The monster was at least twice as large as the barn, a wild mixture of colours that ranged from bright pinks to fluorescent greens to dark purples and glowing amber. It had limbs that protruded from its main mass, which resembled something like a blue whale, only with teeth replacing every smooth surface and limbs filling all the others. It seemed to try to scurry to him, each of its limbs acting individually, trying independently to close the gap between themselves and Neil.

As it walked over the smaller gem mutants, it seemed to collect and join them into its mass, growing slightly with each shard that joined its mass. It cleared the space between Neil and the warp pad in a single confused and conflicting manoeuvre.

Neil had no real plan, just to repeat the last thing that worked well enough; bring the house down.

This time he would need more than one brick of C4 for the job and while he could barely walk, still struggling to maintain clear vision with a sensation that felt like sand running through his head and legs that felt like they would melt away from beneath him. He went for the nearest full cliff, stumbling and only barely keeping himself moving as the mass continued to move and claw in his wake.

He dumped all of his remaining explosive, his drill training droning through his head as he did.

 _Remember to never use more than one brick at any time, do not use it for mining, for cooking, for fun or for showing off and if I do find you using this stuff for anything but its intended purpose, I will shove your detonator so far up your ass, every time you cough, it will sound like the 4th of July!_

He dumped his bag, containing all of his remaining explosive and armed them all, the mass of limbs getting closer and closer with each second as it chased his scent. He mustered what strength he could and threw the bag into one of the many holes that dotted the cliffs around him.

He struggled to move onward, beginning to feel the burden of a very low blood pressure and a high stress environment. His heart rate was increasing and that was bad for his still very leaky wound.

 _Standard safety procedures dictate that the minimum safe distance for one brick of C4 is dependent on the mass of the explosive used, more explosive, larger distance… I had about 10KG of C4 left and the minimum safe distance for 13KG is 300 Meters… I won't make it but it's worth a try…_

The beast was hot on his tail, only a few seconds behind him as he did his little calculation and decided on getting to 270 meters before he would definitely detonate.

Neil was not the fastest soldier by any means. In his day, he could do 100 meters in a little over 20 seconds at a full sprint.

Right now he was wearing most of his combat gear and was still gushing blood from his arm, while he was also on the verge of passing out with only a few moments to go before he would be consumed by the beast behind him.

He was only 127 meters away from the explosives when he detonated.

The shockwave was largely buffeted by the stone that surrounded it in the cliff and the beast that was positioned just beside the deposit and, much like the previous cliff, this one began to and rise and fall onto the mutant monster.

Stone was ejected high into the air before the gravitational bonds of the earth grasped them once again and pulled them back into the abyss where a still rapidly retreating Neil attempted to escape in the rolling dust clouds that soon formed and chased after him.

A further explosion of dust as the monstrosity was struck in the 'head' by a large piece of fall debris which caused it to poof that segment, other pieces trying to independently maintain themselves only to cease in maintaining their forms. Neil had been successful but there was still much debris falling for him.

One large piece struck a gem injector drill and caused it to fall near to him, then it began to make a number of concerning noises in the near silent sound of occasional boulders striking the ground as it began to start up.

The large crystal on its top lit like small beacon before it methodically clawed its way toward the cliff face, forcing Neil to take refuge in one of the holes in an attempt to get away from it.

It chose his hole to start its process with, its beacon following him and tracing his movements.

First the drill head simply spun rapidly, an intensely high speed that would surely have torn him to shreds if it touched him. His heart was racing, was this really much better than being blown up by his own explosive? Or being shot by a confused Russian? Or even being completely crushed by the monstrosity he just destroyed? Was this his price for trying to survive?

 _Oh god no..._

Then it stopped, only a few inches from his chest. The sound was still ringing in his ears and he could feel the stone and air around him heat in the presence of the friction the machine caused, dust filling the space, making it incredibly hard to breathe.

Then it impaled him square in the chest, a rod the diameter of a throwing javelin jutted out from the end of the drill, piercing right through his body armour and into the back of his chest cavity and crushing into the midsection of his spine. Then as if simply being fully impaled wasn't bad enough, the end of the rod began to heat up intensely before a flaming hot, syrupy fluid began to flow from the tip of the javelin and into the new cavity of his body, spreading in all directions of it's exit point as it tried to form a shape inside of him.

Neil felt numb all over before but this was something entirely different. He felt his organs suffer under the tremendous pressure of the rod, his ribs had all been broken while his lungs and hart had been completely crushed under the weight of his body armour in these new conditions.

He could feel his entire body begin to pass, arms dropping to his sides and legs failing to prop him up any longer. The bullet wound no longer hurt, nothing hurt anymore, he could barely feel anything beyond the sound of rushing blood in his head and the noise of the gem drill moving on to the next pre-drilled hole in its automated process.

Then there was nothing, a blackness that no sense could describe.

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 **The Warp – 5 minutes ago**

"WHY DIDN'T YOU LET ME HELP, AMETHYST?!" Cried Steven, tears welling in his eyes.

Steven believed he should have at least tried harder to make a difference and help the soldier he was coming to call friend but none of the others felt the same way, or at the least they felt like there was little they could do to help.

Alex was very confused, he didn't expect to find anything even remotely resembling people on the other side of the wall of light but to have seemingly American people of such a confusing nature surrounding him in the void once again was certainly not at the front of his mind.

 _What in the name of Putin have I gotten myself into?_

Peridot was just slightly tormented, she knew there were forced fusion experiments in the Kindergarten and she knew they were of varying sizes but she had no indications or prior warnings for the whale of a mutant.

Amethyst was suffering her own kind of torment, as far as she knew, the Kindergarten wasn't all that dangerous, there was never any evidence of a giant fusion monster there under her young and confused feet when she emerged. She also felt bad for Neil, just a human that was making a very serious move in their favour that, as far as they knew could be just as fatal to either party involved.

"Steven, I don't know what you think we could have done. That thing was huge! If Neil didn't manage to poof it or destroy it entirely, then he managed to distract it, even if only for a few moments. And if managed to distract it, we might be able to make it back in time to help him."

Steven looked down to his feet with a look of self-disappointment, Peridot gave some words of comfort; even if she wasn't very good with others and feelings, she still had to say something.

"I believe that one of his team was a sort of field doctor, he might be able to help Neil and stop him from bleeding out in the cold and unforgiving embrace of the Kindergarten and if he did fail in keeping the creature at bay, I'm sure they won't mind letting you pull the trigger that finally stops it."

This wasn't quite as effective as Peridot was hoping, she thought saying something was better than saying nothing, which wasn't necessarily always correct.

Thanks to the green thing, the remaining people spent the rest of the journey trapped in an awkward silence until the trip finally ended and they reappeared by the red barn.

Alex was the only one to appear in the air, a few feet above the warp pad, which meant that when gravity returned to him, he had a very brief moment of looking like a cosmonaut before dropping like a stone to the ground. Steven ran for the nearest character, which happened to be Pearl, who was moving a few plates of tungsten over to her next segment of the drill.

"PEARL!" Steven cried as he ran toward her as fast as his stubby legs would allow.

Pearl's attention was immediately snapped to the direction of her name caller, she put the tungsten down and stood to face Steven as he came within conversation distance.

At the sound of the chiming warp pad, everyone's attention was drawn to the same direction, although the lack of a squad member and the presence of the newcomer was not just unexpected, it was downright mortifying.

"Where's Neil?" Asked Sam, the first one to see the lack of their squaddie in the group, "And who's that?" He said pointing to the Russian.

Steven spoke in a fast and panicked tone. "WeweregettingNeil'sstuffandthenthisguyshotathimandthentherewasthishugegemmutantthatcameoutofnowhereandnowNeilmightbedeadbecauseIdidn'tspitonhiswoundintheKindergartensopleasecomebackwithussowecanhelphimquick!" He took his opportunity to breathe after spitting out his hurried explanation.

"What?" Franklin said, not managing any better than anyone else to decode what Steven said.

"NEIL NEEDS HELP!" He spat out, taking a moment to see if the others would pick up on his more concise explanation.

Garnet stood at the corner of the Barn, peeking around the corner, "We'd better get moving then."

That was all the encouragement the marines needed, opting to sprint right for the warp pad, with Steven in pursuit and Gems gaining on them.

Before anything else could happen, Pearl, Amethyst, Steven, Franklin, Sam and Garnet where all on the warp pad, it chiming as they were sent back to the Kindergarten.

This left Peridot, the stranger and Kyle, who had only just returned from a midday nap, confused at the glimpse he got of the crowded warp pad shortly before it left him there with a stranger and the green one.

"What happened?" He said, wiping sleep from his eyes and yawning.

"Neil had… An incident…" Peridot said, with a tormented expression on her face. The stranger had a face of fascination and absolute confusion at the same time, dumbstruck enough to not even bother with running form the American soldier that now held him in a vice-like grip, dragging him away to the barn for an interrogation, even if it would end up more like guard duty.

Alex thought that he would rather Max was still with him, at least he would have a buddy that way, someone to talk to and someone to relate to.

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 **The Kindergarten – Day 3 – 15:02**

They all piled out of the warp pad's circumference and moved to clear ground quickly.

The first thing they noticed was the sound of distant activity and the lack of any rubble from Neil's first escapade here, replaced by a massive trail of disturbed dust and stones, that seemed to track to the source of the activity.

There was also a dark red trail of blood that followed the same direction.

The group all followed the devastation, soldiers and Gems holding their weapons at the ready for action at a moment's notice.

As they winded around the winding walls of the ravines, nearing the source of the activity, they could see what remained of a collapsed cliff, the entire structure having fallen to a large explosion that opened out into a wide, open area.

In the area, they moved around the rubble that seemed to vibrate slightly with the increasing volume of the activity.

Then they found the source, a gem injector drill that had activated itself and after attempting to climb further up the cliff face, failed to maintain a good grip and plummeted down, breaking in half over the boulder that lay in wait beneath it. The drill head was still spinning although it wasn't the drill head that caught their attention, rather the thick blood stains that had accumulated around it and around the hole the drill faced.

Pearl was immediately disgusted by the sight and sought to cover Steven's eyes in an attempt to shield his innocence from the gore present, although the low lighting made it near impossible to see anything beyond the rim of the space.

"What the FUCK?" Sam said, obviously disturbed by the sight, blood staining all around the hole itself. Franklin made a fast move, dropping his weapon and going for his medical equipment in an attempt to at least try and do something.

Carefully stepping into the dark space, Franklin found the remains of Neil, his body was severely broken, his combat vest had a large burned hole; the same size of a gemstone present on any of the crystal gems. Indeed looking into it Franklin could see a slight glistening but in the low light it was hard to differentiate between the blood and the gemstone itself, although moving Neil's broken body, he could see the gemstone protruding from Neil's back, it was still very hot and seared at Neil's dormant flesh.

He checked for pulse, although the large amount of blood told him there was a certain unlikeliness to this working. As expected, there was nothing. He looked to his watch, showing the mission time and spoke in a tone only audible to himself and the helmet camera, still recording.

"Time of death: 4 days, 6 hours and 43 minutes into the mission. Chances of recovering the body and equipment to mainland is minimal." He took the dog tags that hung only a few inches away from the hole in his chest. "Cause of death is likely extreme blood loss and invasive penetration of the chest cavity."

No one could pry their eyes from the hole, the sounds and sights of a defeated Franklin crawling from the dark and gory void only added to the sadness Steven felt, shared by everyone present.

Franklin stood in the open to give his address, choosing not to describe the situation in such detail that it would haunt the child for the remainder of his life, "He's not coming home guys."

,.,.,.''.,'.','.','.','.,''.','.,'.','.',.',.','.,'.','.,.,.,

Neil felt a total lack of sensation, as though he had no sense of sight, no sense of hearing, he couldn't even feel his own body. He had his ability think and that was all he had.

 _Was this death? Was this all that happens? Everything just blacks out and I am left to think things for eternity?_

 _No… What makes you think that?_

 _Who was that?_

 _I could say the same. Who are you?_

 _Well… I guess I am still called Neil Vickers, what about you?_

 _I don't know… Who am I?_

 _Well I guess you could use a name then… How about Angela?_

 _It feels good, I have a name, a designation._

 _That's a big word for a entity that didn't have a name 4 seconds ago… What are you?_

 _That depends… What are you?_

 _Please, I wasn't very good at philosophy in life…_

 _Well, what if that's all we have left now?_

 _I guess so… I suppose I was a kind of self-aware, conscious entity… A mind, or a soul, or…  
I don't really know…_

 _Well that sounds like me too…  
Were there many other things about being you?_

 _I was a human… A person that was one of many… I had a group, a squad of others like me…_

 _Are they in this same predicament right now?_

 _I don't think so…_

 _What was life like?_

 _It was difficult, there are always challenges and obstacles to overcome but beating these things are what made living worth doing,  
they gave a satisfaction in their completion…_

 _Is that all humans do? Complete challenges?_

 _Well when you say it like that it makes it seem boring…  
It was more than that, there were emotions like frustration, and pride,  
and sadness and joy..._

 _That sounds stupid…_

 _Have you never felt an emotion before?_

 _Not since I started existing… I only feel like I am supposed to protect, but protect what?_

 _I found myself asking that same  
question a while ago…_

 _What do you mean?_

 _Before I was a full soldier, I was trained to fight and kill but despite the vicious acts of hatred we trained to do,  
we convinced ourselves it was to save more people in the long run…  
To spill some blood now so less blood is spilled later…_

 _That sounds like a very conflicting dilemma for one that joins in half way through…_

 _I thought the same so I just put it aside and let it fall out of memory,  
at least until it becomes relevant again…_

 _..._

 _Why am I opening all of this information to you?  
I don't even know what or who you are…_

 _You already named me Angela, although being as I only just came into existence and have no other means to detect the world around me…  
Right now, there is nothing but your voice guiding my totally blind consciousness…_

 _So you are like a mind without a body…  
A soul without any senses beyond  
a single voice…_

 _That's certainly how it feels right now…_

A silence encapsulated the two entities, neither sure of what would or even could happen next.

 _What would you do if you had a  
second chance?_

 _A second chance at what? At life?_

 _Yes…_

 _I guess I would live a little easier knowing  
death isn't all that bad and I guess I would  
be a little happier about being alive…  
A little more thankful...  
_ _I guess you never really miss things_ _until you lose them…_

 _But what would you do to **other** beings?_

 _I would treat them with a new outlook…  
I never used to think about these things, they scared me.  
But now I understand that under the flesh, we are but minds,  
entities that desperately want to be happy and contented.  
_ _I guess I would treat others with the  
_ _respect and dignity they all deserve  
_ _without the stigmas against them._

 _To protect them all and to save them all…_

 _That sounds like a good thing…  
I would be glad to be a part of you if you would carry this message to those around you..._

 _What do you mean?_

And then the conversation just ended, no call would yield a response from the entity called Angela and there where no sensations to fill the void that no possessed Neil's existence.

 _Well what now then?_

Then there was a strange sensation, he could feel something...

 **A/N**

 **Not too sure about how I ended up going with this one... Oh well, if it sucks too badly, let me know and I will see to it that it is fixed...**

 **Also search "The View - Realisation" because I frigign love that song right now, let me know if you like it too!**

 **Now the next chapter will be out by Friday, guaranteed but right now, I really need to shower...**

 **See you all in the next one!**

 **Mein Kapatin**


	6. Chapter 6- Separate ways

**The Hilltop Barn – Day 4 – 06:21**

It was a test of their timing but it seemed rather fitting to do something rather than to leave Neil in the hole he died in. They were to have a funeral on the hilltop, with Kyle, Sam and Franklin taking care of his remains, doing as they had been trained to do.

Kyle didn't take to the news well, when he saw them return, still one man down and solemn expressions on the faces of his awaited crew, it only confirmed Peridot's story.

Steven was distraught, not just for the sake of the sight but he felt as though he had completely failed to be of any use to the man who would now never go home.

Pearl saw a certain beauty in the funeral process, as gems didn't have a tradition for the shattering of a gem, any remains that could be recovered where recycled into materials for new gems and the old gem was forgotten... Pearl liked the idea of saying goodbye to a fallen comrade before the remains are left to cycle through the earth once again.

Sam and Franklin were both more senior members of the squad and they had seen their fair share of action, although none of their squad mates had actually died before; the last support guy having lost a leg to a childish incident involving a carelessly placed claymore and the original engineer simply retiring from the military. But that didn't mean they took to it like it was nothing.

They had a grave dug in the night before and now the body was presented, wrapped in rags and rugs and placed by the side of the hole. Franklin stood at the headstone to speak his eulogy.

"His title was Private N. Vickers but his name was Neil. He was the youngest and newest member of our squad, our family and in the short time he spent with us, he touched our lives with his care and compassion, his near child-like innocence. It's because of him that the rest of us are still alive and his sacrifice will not be forgotten."

A nod from Franklin and Sam and Kyle kneeled by Neil's body and proceeded to roll him into the grave, trying to make the motion look as elegant as it wasn't. The crystal gems all stood on the opposite side of the hole.

They all stood and held a minute of silence before any further actions were taken. The gems were not familiar with this procedure, but respected the wishes of the soldiers as they stood and watched the sun rise over the horizon of the ocean.

The cool sea air filled the space, gentle breezes making their routes through the space as they carried a peaceful and chilling sensation. Rays of light began to strike the people stood on the hilltop while the city slept below.

They began to bury the grave, each person present threw a handful of dirt onto the body before Sam and Kyle took to filling the space with shovels.

Upon the grave's completion, the earth back in its place, they set about making the finishing touches on the drill. Garnet, Pearl, Peridot and Sam went to the kindergarten next to gather the drill head, and from there they made relatively quick progress, being uninterrupted by any gem mutants and moving with haste; learning from the mistakes of the past.

Upon their return, it was just a matter of time before the components where fully compatible and the machine ready.

But right now, Franklin, Pearl and Garnet were interrogating the Russian soldier, Pearl acting as a translator.

"Who are you?" said Franklin, calmly with a voice that controlled the atmosphere in the near silent barn.

"Конечно, почему нет?" He replied in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

"He said 'Sure, why not?' though I doubt he means it." Pearl complied.

Garnet acted as an enforcer of sorts, standing behind the man currently sat in a chair. If he stood up, she sat him back down and hoped he didn't lock his knees on the way up.

"Там нет смысла пытаться вернуться , даже если вы сделать это через пустоту ворот , у них есть так много пушек там вы будете измельченные в клочья." He said, this time more defeated than before, as he held his arms to his chest in self comforting.

"There's no point in trying to get back, even if you do make it through the void gate, they have so many guns back there you'll be shredded to ribbons." Pearl translated, speaking at the same time as the Russian so as to keep the conversation running.

Franklin replied, placing his hands on the armrests of the chair and bringing his face closer to the Russian's. "That's why we try, that's why we fight against our enemies and work towards our objectives. There is no such thing as a person that succeeded without trying."

There was a silence in the barn. The words that Pearl passed over to the Russian man touched her in a rather personal way and Garnet couldn't help but admire the resilience of the human's words. Humans may live shorter lives but they learn so many things in that short time.

They all awaited the next few words from either party. Despite the Russian's will to comply and answer, he was still reluctant to listen and agree with anything the Americans said.

The silence stretched on in the darkened and dusty barn until Franklin eventually moved to the back of the barn to get something. He held in his hands a large red banded gemstone in the shape of a near perfect asscher, which was hard to believe considering what it went through to solidify.

"This is what killed our soldier. From what everyone is saying, it looks like its your fault he died, your fault he was shot, your fault he couldn't return to us alive and your fault he won't go home after all of this." He put the heavy object down on a nearby workbench and sighed as he continued to talk.

"We all want to go home, forget about the mission, we don't want to destroy your facility anymore, in fact if we don't get out there, it'll be destroyed via an airstrike... Whatever it was you boys where hoping to do with it, it won't matter in three days and when it happens the whole facility will be on a live feed camera back to the US and your beans will be thoroughly spilled."

"I have a wife and two kids, you know. Samantha is only 12 years old and Rhys is just 8. I just want to get home to them and to spend time with my wife. Now I don't know what you have to come home to but there has to be something for you, even if it is something stupid like another infernal project like this."

Another uncomfortable silence fell over the barn.

"Тогда почему вы строите дрель ?"

"He asked why we are building a drill... Shall we tell him?"

Then Peridot burst into the barn, the drill completed in its construction. "Guys, the drill is done but we have one big problem leftover."

"What is it, Peridot?" Garnet replied.

Peridot stated blankly, "We don't have any coordinates." Which then devolved into a more panicked tone. "How can we drill if we don't even know WHERE to drill!"

Kyle soon filed into the barn, panting for air as he recovered from chasing down the green gem as Pearl began to explain a possible solution. "Well there may be one place that may contain that information, an old diamond facility but getting there is going to be difficult."

"Why, where is it?" Kyle interrupted.

"It's on the moon." She replied matter-of-factly.

This was a problem that no one present had preparations for, they needed a meeting of some sort to gather ideas on how they could get the information from the lunar base.

"Tell everyone to meet in the barn at once." Garnet replied, instructing Peridot and Kyle to run off to gather the others.

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Upon everyone's gathering in the barn, Pearl began her explanation, being as she was the only one with any knowledge of the moon base.

"Right, the problem is that we do not know the cluster's exact coordinates, meaning we cannot drill or there is a certainty we will miss it and just end up drilling right through the Earth, which would produce it's own problems. There is a place that I believe may hold the coordinates, its a long shot, I know but its the best idea we have right now. We need to travel to the moon, there is an old diamond facility somewhere on the surface. In the facility there should be the information needed." She concluded.

Franklin stepped up. "The challenge is that was don't possess the technology or time to just build a rocket and fly up there, nor do we believe that the humans of this world have ever set foot on their moon. If there are any gem technologies that can help us get there, now is the time to reveal them because otherwise, we may need to consider an evacuation plan... No coordinates, no drill, no Earth."

Sam stepped forward from the crowd. "We can't just use a warp pad to get there?"

Pearl replied. "No, there aren't any warp pads on the surface of the moon. And even if there where, the galaxy warp on this planet has been irreparably damaged, unless Peridot had any flask robonoids left over from the last time she tried to repair it."

"We could use Lion." Steven said, gaining the attention of the marines in particular as they had been yet to see the fabled pink lion of Steven's description.

With that he ran outside and called for his furry friend. "LION! LIIIIION!" He called time and time again. "Oh there you are." He said as he stepped out to the side where a ruined truck lay beside the barn, the team followed the boy outside to the supposed location of the lion.

The bright pink creature slept in the morning sun. It was a large creature, big enough to carry maybe three or four of them, while still having room enough for Steven and Peridot. Despite it's size, it was never around when it wasn't needed, which was likely why none of the marines had seen the creature until now.

"Hey Lion, can you make us a special super warp to the moon?" Steven asked the creature, which opened its eyes a crack, looked at him and stretched out, making itself more comfortable on the ground.

"C'mon Lion, we've got to do this to stop the cluster! If we don't there's going to be no more Earth! No more fun times with your pals, no more Lion lickers... No more naps."

This was all the motivation it seemed to need, it stood up, roared loudly and opened its eyes, revealing a pair of white glowing disks.

Steven turned to his friends. "I guess it was naps."

,.,.,''''.,.','.,.'.','.,'.,','.,'.,'.,'.,'.,''.,.',.,,'.,,.,.

It was decided that Franklin, Pearl, Steven, Peridot and the Russian would take the Lion warp to the moon.

The Russian was coming in an attempt to get him to open up and possibly take their side on the whole void gate problem, with Franklin acting as a chaperone and Pearl as his translator. Steven and Peridot had to come for the sake of making sure Lion would actually go to the moon, it just seemed to listen to him more than anyone else, and Peridot because only she knew how to work the old gem technology, to get the information from the computers there and to bring the coordinates back with them.

Having all mounted the great beast, it began to run down the hillside, leaping in great bounds with Steven and Peridot both contained in the lion's mane and the others all riding on the creature's back.

The Lion roared with a resounding noise that echoed and pierced the fabric of reality as a glowing portal opened before them and the beast dove for the gateway of light.

Flying through the bright space was a strange experience, it was much like the void from the warp but this time there was plenty of air, so much that even slight movements seemed to lead to some serious wind resistance. The creature's speed carried them forward through the bright and shiny pocket dimension for a few seconds before it screamed open another portal, causing their speed to increase. This lead to the people riding to beast to hold on to each other in a bid to avoid being left behind in the strange dimension.

Then it screamed open another portal, and another, and another, their speed growing with each successive breach until they finally seemed to reach the end of the journey when the next portal opened out into a large, darkened room with a very high ceiling.

The lion carrying them slid across the floor until it struck the far wall, all occupants feeling the impact of the creature as it almost squeezed them against the surface.

Lion was very tired and Steven saw that. "Looks like you've earned your naps for the week." He said with an affectionate hug to the beast.

Everyone clambered off of the creature, scrambling to stand up and hopefully feel their legs again.

"So, we really made it to the moon huh?" Franklin thought aloud, prompting a response from Pearl.

"It would appear so." As the soldier, hostage and two gems watched Steven bounce and float in the reduced gravity.

"Это довольно странный опыт ... Я знал, что пустота было странное место, но это ... Я не ожидал этого ... Если бы только Макс был здесь, чтобы увидеть его." He said, growing quieter toward the end.

"What did he say?" Franklin commanded.

"He said that it was a strange place, he knew 'the void' and by that I assume he means the warp, is a strange place but this is something else... He also said he wishes 'Max' was still here to see it with him."

"Ask him who 'Max' was."

She complied as Steven proceeded to bounce and bump into the murals that lined the walls, inquiring into their significance as Peridot proudly proclaimed the Yellow Diamond image, her own matriarch that she assured was absolutely perfect in any and every way.

"Конечно, почему нет?" He began, shrugging his shoulders before facing the Pearl with an honest and solemn expression and tone.

"Макс был ... Коллега мой, на самом деле он работал на строительстве недействительным ворота. Мы входим в пустоту вместе, но он не ... Он не сделал этого."

"He said that 'Max was a colleague that worked directly on the 'void gate'... They went in together but their pickup never came and they began to run out of air..."

The Russian's expression dropped to a new low, he seemed more broken than before, more defeated.

Steven and Peridot walked over to meet them as Franklin put an arm around the shoulder of Alex.

"Pearl, please translate for me as I talk-" Franklin said, not breaking his contact with the Russian.

She nods in acceptance of the order. "Listen to me, we all want to get home, to go back and see our families... But right now, we are all stuck in the same boat. That isn't your Earth and this isn't my Earth but for now that doesn't matter, we need to finish up here and save this planet before we can make our own portal home. Then you can go home, I can go home and we can all forget this ever happened to us."

He stepped back and turned away from the broken Russian.

"There are US bombers coming for your facility in a matter of days and if at least one of us makes it, we can call off the airstrike that could lead to international devastation. Even if you join us and decide it would only bring trouble to keep the project going, chose to defect to the US... We still don't know anything about the void gate other than what it does on a practical scale. Anything you do tell us will help us all get home before Uncle Sam drops his presents right on top of us."

There was a silence once again as Pearl finished the translation, nothing but the eerie sounds of the Lunar installation resting and reacting to the unfiltered solar radiation.

Peridot took the empty space as her chance to announce her progress. "There is a panel over there that looks like it could be of use to us." She said, gesturing with her thumb to a floor tile that looked slightly out-of-colour to the rest of the surrounding floor tiles.

As the group surrounded the distinguished floor tile, Peridot kneeled down and spread her arms across it, causing it to light up and begin to rise up from the floor. This was promptly followed by many other tiles adjacent to the first one to rise one step higher, then another step higher. This continued until a staircase to the ceiling had emerged from the ground.

Now it was a matter of traversing the grand staircase up to the next chamber, where a strange orb-like object floated in a rather loud and actively moving force field of some sort. Steven asked what exactly it was, but his curiosity was dismissed by Franklin. "If it isn't what we came for, it isn't relevant, now I don't mind being on the moon all that much but I really don't trust this place to hold together too much longer, what with all the sudden activity of us being here."

"He's right-" Pearl added. "This station has been left abandoned for thousands of years and who knows what kind of damage the solar radiation, solar winds and even attempted human activities could have done to this place." She suddenly remembered that most of her audience was Human or at least half-Human and so, her casual and flippant disregard for their safety could be somewhat offensive. She opted to keep her mouth shut for the remainder of the journey up the staircase.

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"Well, what now?" Said Kyle as the head of their group disappeared into a shiny void riding atop a pink lion.

"I don't know, you're the engineer." Replied Sam, a heavy musk of implied banter to mask his genuine unknowing of what to do.

Garnet came to meet the two standing and talking about possible tattoos to commemorate the, now completely true image of their squad leader riding atop a pink lion with a kid, an alien technician, a ballerina and a Russian cosmonaut.

"I've got something for you two to do." She said, with a slight small smile that was barely visible on her normally static lips.

Sam and Kyle awaited her response and closed in, reaching the range of which only a whisper could possibly be appropriate. "You two could go into town and grab some food for when Steven and the others get back, after all I expect you two must be getting hungry."

"That raises a question." Sam said, "How come we have never seen you guys eat? Other than Amethyst." Sam gestured over his shoulder to Amethyst, who happened to be walking by carrying spare junk to no particular place. "You guys talkin' about me?" She said over the silent trio before dropping the junk and running to join them.

"Watcha' talkin' 'bout?"

"We were going to get some food from the town and maybe I suppose if all the work is done, we can maybe get a little R&R? With the permission of the CO of course..." said Kyle, looking up to Garnet, who had been assumed head of the Crystal Gems by this point and, by the hierarchy they had going, would make her their Commanding Officer.

"Hmm... Approved." She said, dispatching the three people down the hill and into the town, looking for a bar with good drinks and a good greasy spoon.

It was up to Amethyst to guide them around the town, neither of them having properly scouted out the settlement, and while they trusted that the indigenous humans wouldn't be of any true harm to them, there was no reason they could find for them to not bring at least their sidearms with them.

As they made for a casual stroll down the hill, they made for a walk along into the town via the boardwalks, stretching the length of the town on both ocean facing sides. Kyle and Sam followed their guide along until they reached a fry stand half way along the walk. "Hold up here guys, its been a while since I've been here." Amethyst said, walking ahead of them and up to the front of the fry stand.

She proceeded to loudly talk about 'getting the bits' before she was promptly handed a bag of overly-greasy and over-saturated fry bits, dripping with fry oil so much that the double bagging it was granted failed to stop the dripping at the bottom. She carried the bag over to the two marines, who at first treasured their love for having unclogged arteries over the soggy lure of the fry bits, but Kyle eventually gave in to Amethyst's insistent offers and the promise that they are better when they are still warm.

Admittedly, Kyle loved them, making frequent re-visits to the bag whenever he could. "Ahh, the potato... America's vegetable for when there's no corn..." He said before scoffing a whole handful and feeling his heart skip a couple of beats.

Sam was not so easily swayed over; choosing to simply decline every offer and dodge Kyle's attempts at force feeding the first, highly addictive bite.

Soon, the fry bits where gone and it was time for something else. It was late morning of a Sunday and so, most of the citizens where still asleep, only a few stores had been opened by this point and only the occasional resident walked by, seemingly unfazed by the presence of officially dressed and armed soldiers present in their town. They all began to wonder just how someone might react to the truth behind their presence there.

What would they ask first?

Would they be welcoming or hostile to that kind of news?

Would they believe them?

Kyle eventually pried his eyes from the bottom of the fry bit bag and saw the next restaurant, a pizzeria. This one had a large sign above it that read 'Fish Stew Pizza' which the two soldiers thought couldn't have practically tried harder to be more off-putting in it's name before Amethyst thought to drag them both inside for a real meal.

Upon their entrance, they met with an overwhelming scent of garlic in the air. There where a few residents maintaining the human presence in the restaurant, a rather chubby young man with wild, almost dread locked blonde hair sitting on his laptop in the corner. Another two teenagers, one tall with white hair in a peak and the other wearing a red jacket and a visor similar to Garnet's, where also present closer to the front of the establishment.

"Woah, this place is jammin' right now!" Called out Amethyst, turning the attention of the pizza-goers to the gem and soldiers. The marines moved to the counter, to the right of the entrance to order their pizza. "Hey, uhh can I see the menu?" Asked Kyle to the young woman behind the counter.

"Sure, here you go." She said, handing over a piece of laminated card that held the names and descriptions of many different kinds of pizza, from the simple and well known kinds such as cheese and cheese and pepperoni, apparently prominent enough to exist throughout multiple dimensions. Then towards the bottom of the menu, stranger combinations began to make themselves present, presumably more infamous than famous names such as 'fresh fish tail and avocado', 'the large German' and the most memorable 'anchovies, anchovies, anchovies'.

They settled on a 4 cheese pizza, with a side order of orange juice for both of the marines and Amethyst, it seemed appropriate for the time of day and Kyle was starting to regret the oily residue that had taken residence in his mouth and wished to be rid of it. They settled to rest in a booth opposite the middle of the customer side of the counter.

"Hey." Called over the one teenager that wore a visor, "I haven't seen your faces around here before, well your face I know-" He said, gesturing to Amethyst. "But I don't recognise you two. What are you're names?" He had a very quiet and calmed voice, much like Garnet's and at first this put the two marines on edge until they remembered the chances of these kids being of any threat to them had to be astronomically small, and even so, they were still armed.

What could possibly go wrong?

"I'm Sam, this is Kyle. We're visiting for a few days, maybe longer, maybe shorter." He said, almost like he was reading off of a ransom card.

"Hey man, that's cool; you can see more of the world if you keep on moving but you see more closely the slower you go so either way is good by me."

"That was awfully insightful for someone of your age." Replied Kyle, raising an eyebrow.

"I try to watch out for where I am going as a person in this world, but really I just don't feel particularly comfortable with the fact that I am stuck in this town for the foreseeable future."

"well that was bluntly honest." Sam added.

"I like it." Kyle further added. "Care to tell us about the town or the people or the country or something? We're... Uhh, European..."

Kyle could hear Sam face palming behind him but the teenager didn't seem to catch on, or maybe he didn't really care and was happy to have new faces to talk to. Whatever it was didn't matter because now they had a new source of knowledge to compare with what the Crystal Gems had told them and in their own honest experience, they had been tricked by friendly locals that lied about things before, checking their story was a good thing to do at any opportunity.

"So, what's holding you down here?" Asked Sam, taking a sip from his glass of crisp and fresh orange juice.

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Garnet watched the trio of whom would undoubtedly cause some trouble in the town but it was unlikely they would cause any more damage than the gems usually caused to the town's people.

 _It's time..._

She walked to the right of the barn, now she was alone, or at least as alone as she could be.

Garnet was known as a fusion among gems, she was technically two gems in one, a ruby and a sapphire that joined in fusion thousands of years ago, their affection for each other meant that they could maintain a constant state of fusion, which was difficult for gems whose personalities differed significantly, for example while Pearl and Amethyst could fuse to form a new gem called Opal, they rarely did unless they where getting along especially well, which never lasted longer than a few days at most.

Garnet had been fused for 5, 750 years straight.

Moving over to Neil's grave she shape-shifted one of her arms into a worm-like slithering form, moving around and in between the larger dirt particles until she hit the cold fabric of Neil's uniform. She wrapped her fingers until they found what she was looking for, his remaining dog tag.

The marines had two dog tags each, one was a copy of the other and so, when a soldier fell in the field, one tag would be taken back to identify the passing and the second tag would stay with the body, helping it to be identified after the battle had passed and the bodies located. Franklin had taken the first one to confirm his passing when the mission was over.

She firmly held it and pulled it to surface, disturbing as little of the earth as she could as she proceeded to read them.

 _Vickers  
Neil, R  
987-66-3696  
O Negative  
No Preference_

She proceeded to walk to the front of the barn and pull the doors open, stepping inside and closing them after herself.

She found the Gemstone, a pale red Agate gemstone which she placed carefully on the ground, centring in the middle of the barn's space.

A few moments passed, and then it started to glow a little, a faint light that would be barely visible in the daylight. Then the glow seemed to settle until it made for a large push, it tried to form, sending its light out and attempting to make the shape of its first form. At first it looked exceedingly generic, like a glowing manikin before more details such as hair, body shape and clothing began to sprout from the basic form. At first it was like it was going for a long, flowing hair style before it shrank into a very short, almost non-existent hair cut, the form took a masculine build and began to form a set of clothes that looked near identical to the body armour of Neil, being rounded with pockets full of non-functional ammunition.

A few seconds and the form was held before it dropped to the ground, as if suddenly affected by the gravity of the planet.

As if contact with the earth brought further physical development, the form began to stabilise and took colour; ending up on a colour pallet of light and pale reds.

 _He'll have time to work on that later_

The gemstone was visible on the new gem's upper back and for a few seconds it just rested, kneeling on the earth.

*COUGH COUGH*

He began to cough, hacking and wheezing before scurrying to his back, grabbing and checking his chest, rapidly pulling his new clothes apart to check his body for the entry hole for the gemstone.

"You won't find anything there." Garnet spoke to the gem, catching his attention as he snapped his gaze up to the large woman above him.

He sighed in relief before Garnet had a chance to finish her sentence, "Its on your back."

His eyes widened and he scampered his arms to his back, where his fingers landed on the hard, polished surface of the gemstone, centred in his spine.

"What the fuck happened?" He asked, heavily laced with confusion and discomfort.

"You died. Well, your body died. It looks like your consciousness managed to worm its way into the gem before it finally killed you. Its good to see you again Neil, everyone already misses you."

He took a moment to breathe and just get used to his new body, trying to stand was a strange experience. He still had all of his memories from before the incident so having a body that was made of light instead of his normal, meat body was something he was not used to.

"What happened on your end?" Garnet asked, genuinely interested in the experience of the soldier.

"It was the single most painful experience, beyond the description of pain as I could feel my own skeleton begin to splinter and stab my insides. Instinct told me to breathe more, which caused more pain. It continued to build until I completely blanked out, I couldn't see, feel, smell or touch... It was like I was trapped in my own mind. After a short while I started thinking and then there was this other voice... She sounded rough but gentle."

"I remember she said she 'would be happy to be a part of me' before it ended and then... then this happened. Where are the others?"

"Kyle, Sam and Amethyst are down in the town, getting some breakfast and talking with the locals and everyone else, including the Russian are on the moon."

"... The moon?"

"Yes, the moon. They needed coordinates for the gem drill to know where to go and the only place that will likely have that kind of information is on the moon."

"How did they get there?"

"They rode on Steven's Lion."

"Was that supposed to be helpful?"

"It was supposed to be truthful."

She handed him his remaining dog tag, still attached to the chain.

This was going to be a difficult and very awkward thing to explain to his squad mates, Neil could barely remember much of the conversation he held with the entity he named Angela and his new body certainly confused him somewhat. He felt very light at times but he would unpredictably gain weight and loose it again, he was unstable.

"In case you are wondering, you formed very quickly for a first forming gem. Most gems take a couple of centuries before they first form and even then, they have the nurturing energy of the Earth to suck up to help in that process, your gem only had a few hours stuck to your body and being left on this table... I wasn't even sure you could form this early."

"How long where you expecting me to take?"

"At least a few centuries, most gems only have one consciousness inside but I had no idea what would happen with two... I guess it fulled the process a little..."

There was a silence in the air as Garnet considered the possibilities of the gem's own consciousness pretending to be Neil and what it would be like to have two consciousnesses in one head, it could be like being a fusion, much like Garnet herself... In which case, what happens if they fell out with each other? Neil considered what he was going to say to his squad mates, to Steven... To his parents if he made it back...

"In the meantime," Garnet interrupted his thoughts, "It's not going to hurt if we get started on your training as a gem, you never know when you might need to protect yourself."

 **A/N**

 **There it is... I only have the first half of the next chapter written up, Kyle and Sam's journey through Beach City is more-or-less done and The Moon Mission is done but I am yet to finish on what Neil will have going for him... I did a lot of homework on which gemstone to use and settled on Agate, a banded red gemstone that is renowned for it's chemical and physical resilience...**

 **What do you think Neil's gem weapon will be? I will say gem weapons are not dependant on the gem, rather the personality of the gem...**

 **Expect the next chapter by next Friday, it will take a little more writing and editing as it is unfinished... Also I lost my bed to a 12 year old French kid so sleeping on the sofa is not doing me any good for writing...**

 **Also STEVEN BOMB 5 YEAH!**

 **Finally, thank you all so much for your reviews and favourites/follows, you really don't know how much they mean to me and how much they motivate me to carry this through...**

 **Thanks  
** **Mein Kapatin**


	7. Chapter 7- Reunions

**Enjoy this all new, half baked chapter!**

Franklin was the first to bounce into the control room of the lunar base, getting the first looks at the windowed view of the top of the spire. He was quickly followed by Steven and Peridot and then Alex before Pearl joined them at the control console Steven and Peridot had reached, running/bounding toward the centre of the room as Franklin and Alex both enjoyed the awe-inspiring view of the Earth from space.

Steven and Peridot reached the large seat, positioned at the highest point of the spire. There was a moment of bickering between the half gem and the Homeworld gem before more childish giggling ensued, they really where a couple of children that where guiding and running the show.

"You can't sit there, that seat is reserved for the highest ranking gems!" Peridot called to Steven, already seated in the stone throne.

"Well they're not here right now." He said, scooting over to make room for Peridot to join him, which she did, giggling mischievously the whole time.

"Что за вид! Я почти вижу мой дом отсюда! хе-хе..." Alex said, still staring at the phenomenal view with eyes wide and mouth agape.

Pearl didn't immediately translate what he said, rather she minded her own business until prompted by Franklin, which happened after a few seconds of silence.

*Ahem*

"Oh, yes sorry. He just said something about a nice view and home and so on, nothing important."

Looking to see the Earth hanging in the black sky, other stars had been blinded out by the intense sunlight, which Franklin could tell would give him some kind of cancer if he didn't pick up the pace on the mission. This sense of worry was only his, although it soon spread to the Russian as well when they began to notice the geographical differences of this Earth.

While North America and Western Europe looked normal enough, South America looked to have taken most of West Africa with it across the Atlantic ocean. Central Siberia also appeared to have a colossal crater, something the size of the gulf of mexico that was filled with the northern ocean.

The significance of the tectonic differences, the realisation that this really wasn't the same Earth they where born in began to strike at the two human refugees.

Franklin gently grasped Alex's arm, gesturing for them to join the others at the throne, where Peridot had begun to fiddle with the instructions and sift through the data for the Cluster's coordinates on a large holographic screen that floated in the air between the throne and the far side of the glass dome.

"A ha!There it is, buried deep in the Earth's mantle under the beta kindergarten in facet 5. It's the smaller of the two on that landmass, a fair distance further 'west' from the barn but now we should be able to drill as soon as we get back." Peridot proudly announced to the group, hitting a button to download the information to her gem.

As everyone sought to leave before anything bad could happen, Steven asked Peridot a question. "Hey Peridot, does this thing have any games?"

"Games? No, this facility was used to oversee the construction of the Earth colony."

"Woah, really?"

"Yes, look here." Peridot said, pressing a selection of keys and activating a 3-dimensional hologram of the Earth, a series of small red dots scattered around the surface.

"The structures here account for, maybe 5% of what was originally planned."

A series of shapes and designs began to flash onto the screen, showing a variety of familiar and unfamiliar structures to Steven and the others, attentions now fully encapsulated in the views of the hologram.

"What was the plan?" Steven asked, curiously.

"well, let's take a look." She replied, putting her fingers to the controls until she initiated the full transformation hologram video.

The hologram began to break apart, massive holes appearing in the planet's shape, forming massive spires and a perfect 3-axis orbit around the planetoid that remained.

A shocked gasp came from Pearl as she saw the damage of the proposed plans to the Earth's ecosystem and some looks of disgust from the soldiers. They didn't treasure this Earth like Pearl and Steven did but it was still their home, even if only for now, it was still Earth.

"Wow, look at this!" Peridot exclaimed excitedly. "89 Kindergartens, 67 Spires, a galaxy warp in every facet, efficient use of all materials! What where you thinking shutting this operation down! It could've been great!"

"NO YOU'RE WRONG!" Pearl shouted over Peridot's excited talk, shutting her down. "Rose Quartz believed that all life on Earth was precious and worth protecting." She exclaimed

"But think of the good it would have done, the gems made, our empire expanded!" There was a very high tension in the room that even Alex could see, regardless of his lack of what it was they exactly said. "And furthermore, Rose Quartz did a lousy job of saving this planet, There'd be no cluster if the Earth had stayed a colony and now there's no colony, there's going to be no Earth so thank you Rose Quartz, you doomed the planet!"

Peridot stood in the chair and awaited a counter argument but only received dangerous glares from Pearl and Franklin, who had taken his side with the protection of life. Steven saw this and tried to make for a calmer situation, opting to stand between them and to distract from her previous statement, a statement that directly insulted the past leader of the Crystal Gems and all that they stood for.

"Hey guys, let's just calm down and try to-" He was cut off by Franklin grabbing the small Homeworld gem by the shirt of her bodysuit and lifting her out of the seat, into the air.

"Listen here." He said, face so close to hers he could have headbutted her without a moment's notice, which scared Peridot as her gemstone was on her forehead and humans had been known to win fights by headbutting before.

"You are talking about things you do not understand in the slightest. This is not my Earth but I will stand for the protection of life everywhere I go, without prejudice and that includes against aliens like you that see out planet as nothing more than a truck stop to suck dry of resources before you move on to the next one."

"Please stop this, it's not worth it." Steven cried, it was enough to catch his attention.

They held eye contact for a few seconds until he dropped her in her seat without a care followed by him using the butt of his gun to break the control surface of the computer that suspended the hologram in the air. It fizzled out of perception and left the current state of the earth in space, still hanging in the void.

"What I say?" Peridot said as the humans and Crystal Gem departed the scene to go home. "I'm just stating a fact, the rebellion didn't really 'save' earth, it just delayed the inevitable."

Steven sighed. "That's not how they see it. The three of them all fought in some way to establish a safer Earth, they all lost good friends to that fight too. Pearl spent thousands of years tying to protect Earth... I thought maybe you would have understood why." He walked away down the stairs and toward the hovering staircase that would return them to the Lion that brought them here.

At the top of the staircase Pearl awaited everyone's return for the trip home as Franklin and Alex walked ahead. "Are you two still coming?" Pearl asked as it seemed Peridot was taking a slight bit longer than Steven to join the last ride off of the moon.

If she had been a second later, Steven would have gone to check that she was okay before she came running by him, hands awkwardly outstretched as she went. He saw a glint of something in her hand, possibly scavenged from the computer console that was broken by Franklin. For now, Steven just put it to his memory for later, maybe if he got a chance to talk to her directly she could explain it to him, or if the need arises, he could probably wrestle it from her without much effort. For now, he was going to keep quiet and keep it between himself and Peridot.

,.,.,.',.''','.',.','.'','','.','.,''.,'.',.','.',.',.,,..,.

 **Beach City - Day 4 - 10:53 Local Time**

Amethyst was enjoying scoffing down the majority of the pizza, including the plate if she thought no one was watching while Kyle and Sam managed to enjoy a slice each; all the while sharing in conversation with the locals.

"So, what is it you do for money?" Sour Cream, one of the teenagers already present at the Pizzeria prior to the marines arrival asked.

"Well, we're soldiers. We fight other soldiers and people that pretend to be soldiers that go too far so that we can 'preach freedom to the poor countries of the world', even if it never works." Kyle responded, sarcastically voicing his disagreement with the principles of war, even if he secretly loved playing with the technologies and machines it put in his hands.

"That sounds bad man, wouldn't you rather do something better for everyone?" Sour Cream asked, a more worried expression on his face, as he felt concern for the people before him and their nonchalant attitude to fighting, which he didn't realise meant death as a common byproduct; his generation being the first one without any single instances of war on international scales and his lack of attention for any education in the history of the Earth.

"Well, what could I do? I mean its all well and good saying it would be nice to just 'have peace' but everyone wants a slice of cake and there just isn't enough cake to go around. Ever wonder why it's so easy to buy groceries? So cheap to fuel your car?" Kyle replied. He acknowledged war a means to gather resources from other nations and to push politics in the favour of the biggest army, even if the people that actually paid for it thought it was for other reasons.

"I don't have a car man, and as for there being peace, why not? You can't have it without trying for it and besides, we haven't had any wars for years now. The world is pretty chilled right now." The tall and lanky teen retorted. Kyle continued to forget that this was not his world, here the youngest war veterans would be in their 80s and the armies of the world would be very small and insignificant compared to his vision of the US military, the huge cash sink that it was, it still paid to keep a very large number of people and an even larger amount of equipment on standby and in development.

Amethyst thought about the possibilities of a dangerous situation arising from the armed men that she would rather she didn't have to restrain if they got violent and as docile as Sour Cream and Buck Dewey where, Kyle was certainly not a calm or 'chilled' person.

Sam also saw this and broke his considerably more diplomatic conversation with Buck Dewey to defuse the potential Kyle would have been bringing about.

"Sorry, Kyle's been eating too many fry bits lately, it gets his blood pressure way up and he can be a little temperamental when that happens." Sam interrupted, holding a fidgeting Kyle as he turned him to face him and hold him to a whisper. "You know these people aren't like the people back home and you know better than to try anything even remotely stupid like comparing them. Keep our secrets secret and keep it cool while I get the bill, then we are leaving and going somewhere else. Got it?"

"Didn't have to tell them about my blood pressure." Kyle muttered under his breath as his guiltily looked down at the floor.

Sam took that that would be it, it would end there and they wouldn't have another problem.

 _It would be nice to have a little R &R where I don't have to remind Kyle of how to piss in the bowl every goddamn time..._

So, you guys wanna go and do something more fun than just eating?" Amethyst asked, trying to make it sound more upbeat than it really was.

"Sure." Kyle said, folding his arms, still a little sore from his telling.

"Well it looks like we are going... Somewhere else... It's been nice getting to know you and your situation, good luck with... Everything." Sam dismissed Buck, who had been patient enough to wait quietly as the exchange happened.

"Yeah, it been pretty nice getting to know about your situation... Good luck with the potato farms." Buck replied.

"Potato farms?" Kyle whispered to Sam.

"I told you it was important that they don't know the truth about us, it'll just be better if when this is all over, our presence doesn't result in unnecessary fear among the populace... That and as cool as it would be to be caught in a conspiracy, it wouldn't be worth it."

Somehow, the stranger on the laptop, wearing headphones managed to catch onto the word 'conspiracy' even in their hushed tone and quickly inserted himself into the conversation.

"Did you say 'conspiracy'?" He asked. He was big, well rounded and had a voice similar to Peridot's in that it was nasal but it had much more of a bass to it, more low and as the owner of the voice might describe it 'cool'.

"No, he said... Uhh... Cor, that's spicy?" Kyle replied, not too sure of what he was saying and showing, once again to Sam that Kyle had little to no sense of anonymity.

"well then, that's fine..." He said, without so much as a follow up question or even a glance back as he strolled back to his laptop on the table he originally sat at... Almost too casually...

Amethyst guided the two slightly confused marines out of the pizza house and steered them toward the far side of the city, reassuring them about the strange stranger.

"I wouldn't worry about Ronaldo, he's harmless enough... A little deranged at times but he's basically just a big nerd that wants to unravel all the secrets... Even the ones that don't actually exist..."

"So... He's like just about every conspiracy theorist on the internet, all rolled into one obnoxious and sweaty bundle?" Kyle asked, looking for confirmation on this topic.

"Yeah, pretty much. He kidnapped Steven once but that was just a massive misunderstanding and in the end, no one was hurt by the experience... Although it showed us just how much he depended on his own little world... It was just better to let him live in his own way like that, he's happy there."

"What if he tries to kidnap one of us?" Sam asked, doubting something like it would happen but he still didn't want to leave something as potentially real and possible as that to chance.

"We'll know where to look, if no one has seen you in at least 12 hours, we'll start looking and as for an escape plan, he isn't very tough.. All I can say is take it easy on him, he means well even if he is a massive nerd..."

They all walked on through the town until they reached Greg Universe's car wash named 'It's a Wash' which brought a slight chuckle to Sam.

"YO GREGORY!" Amethyst shouted to the older man sat in a folding chair just outside the building near a vibrantly painted van.

He woke from his daytime slumber to join the purple gem and her comrades, panting as he reached them. He wore jean shorts that appeared to be torn at the legs, flip flops and a white vest. He had very long hair, much like Amethyst's although he was balding at the top. Greg also had a bushy and short beard around his mouth.

"Hey Amethyst, I haven't heard from Steven in a few days. Everything okay at the temple?" He said, not yet paying attention to the soldiers.

"Yeah, we had a bit of... A new set of objectives... It's really confusing." Amethyst said, scratching the back of her head as she spoke.

Sam stepped forward to insert and introduce himself. "Hi there, I'm Sam Davis." He extended a hand for Greg to shake, which he gladly took.

"That's quite a grip you get there." Greg commented, holding his hand and flexing his fingers to check for damage.

"Yeah sorry about that, I guess I should have taken my... Uhh training into account when shaking people's hands." He replied with a slightly awkward, although genuine smile.

"Huh... So how do you and your friend know Amethyst?" Greg asked as he gestured to Kyle with an open hand for another handshake, this time ready for the squeeze.

Sam answered as he shook Kyle's hand. "We have been working with the..." He turned to face Amethyst. "Crystal Gems is it?" he asked, checking that he was correct in naming the group, which resulted in a repeatedly nodding amethyst. He turned back to Greg. "Anyway, working with the Crystal Gems because there is a very big set of problems that... That I don't know if I am allowed to tell you about."

Sam turned to Kyle, who shrugged his shoulders in his lacking of knowing what to say or do, it really wasn't his word that mattered, he was below Sam in rank. Sam and Kyle turned to Amethyst for non-verbal clearance, which she gave knowing Greg's relation to the Crystal Gems.

"We, that is Kyle here and myself are soldiers from another dimension... Our Earth has no gems but it does have a lot more war than this place, our group or squad was tasked with destroying a Russian and Chinese facility to stop the development of a potential super weapon... We where kidnapped in the process and held prisoner before being expelled into the warp as the gems know it. We barely managed to survive and then a bunch of stuff happened and then now happened and then I don't know what happened."

It was a lot to take in. He had heard and seen some strange things in his time in Beach City but this was not something he had experience with.

"So, what's your relation with the Crystal Gems?" Sam asked, Kyle turning to looking around awkwardly while quietly hoping they would eventually move on to something else soon, possibly to a theme park or arcade if there where such things around in the really very small city.

"Oh, I am Steven's father. If you already know a few things about the gems the you will know that there are no male gems, so when I fell in love with Rose, the old leader of the Crystal Gems, she had to give up her physical form in order for Steven to exist... I try not to think about it too much and while it hurts, I'm sure it hurts the others too, Pearl the most." He grew increasingly sorrowful towards the end of his explanation.

Amethyst shared a similarly sad expression, holding one arm with the other so as to comfort herself.

"I see." Sam commented, looking downward to the ground in thought as Kyle stood awkwardly to his side.

A few moments of memories flowed through the heads of the primary residents of this dimension and the soldiers stood in silence, thinking before they tried something that could damage any relations that may be forming.

"So, how long are you guys staying? If this isn't your world, I imagine that you would like to go home and see your families." Greg said, wiping a single tear from his eye and breaking the subject of the exchange.

"Well that's an interesting point, you see we need to make sure everything is okay here first, we're working with the Crystal Gems on this, helping to sort this whole situation before they help us with finishing our mission, that will likely mean we will never meet again... At least for a few years anyway... To be honest, as nice as the people and the scenery is, I think we all just want to go home and forget this every happened." Said Sam, speaking for his whole squad, feeling a little ashamed to have lost Neil on his first mission and while it was something of a special coincidence, it was still a fairly large blow.

Kyle interjected. "Looks like we could be going home in a matter of a few days, or we could be calling this place home... All really depends on what happens over the next few days. You know, weather we all die trying to get home or not."

"Why? What's stopping you?" Greg asked, enjoying the change of topic.

"The only way back is probably the same way we came in, which is in the warp and even then, we will need to get through the portal, through the massive underground facility full of Russian and Chinese guns and then out into the Saharan desert before we make radio contact (using a Jeep we no longer have) to call off an airstrike that will bury us in this place if we fail to escape... Then I guess you will be seeing much more of us around here..."

"Oh." Greg replied, feeling at least a little bad for their predicament, their battle against time...

"Wait, if you are so short on time, shouldn't you be working around the clock or something?" Greg asked.

"Well, not right now... We have done everything we can for the drill project, which you'll thank us for later. We still need coordinates from the moon so Franklin, our squad leader, Pearl, Peridot, a Russian that we found yesterday and Steven." Kyle carelessly spurted to Greg, who grew surprisingly worried very quickly and it wasn't without reason. Last time Pearl tried to get Steven into space, they almost died as their vessel exploded high up in the atmosphere, which Greg witnessed first hand.

To say he was uncomfortable with this notion was very true.

"WHERE ARE THEY." He said, grabbing the careless soldier by the collar and bringing him face to face. He had a panic in his eyes and a desperation in his voice.

"We believe that they are all safe and sound, they wen't there using a huge pink lion that sort of just lept through a portal." Sam's attempt at keeping the situation from sparking into something worse wasn't particularly graceful, proving to make the man hyperventilate as yet more things he was not fully aware of came into light.

He started to grow weak, knees begging to wobble uncertainly as he continued to breathe rapidly. Sam and Kyle held him as the really rather heavy set man began to collapse to the pavement side. The marines joined him on either side.

"They don't tell me anything..." He said to himself, head in his hands.

"Relax man. Frank doesn't tell us anything either." Kyle said, which didn't help at all, that was the man that was possibly leading their expedition out there and now it was the vengeful Pearl and the man he didn't know that where on another planetoid with his son, along with a gem he didn't know and a man that even the marines didn't trust.

He did the opposite of what Kyle asked, instead looking upward as he began to continue hyperventilating, possibly beginning to black out.

Then Sam slapped him across the face, snapping him back to reality, although whether that was much better was up for debate. "Get a hold of yourself man! There is no point at all in sitting here and passing out because you didn't see something coming! Come on, let's get ready for their return, they can't be much longer. Then you can have your say in this situation and this doesn't have to happen again."

Sam stood up and offered his hand to Greg, who looked up to him, taking his hand and joining the two refugees and gem on a a return trip to the barn so that he could meet the newcomers and to catch up on what the Crystal Gems had neglected to tell him.

"Wait, why are we walking?" Greg said as they began to walk, "I have a van!"

,.,.','.','.','.,'.,'.','.',''.','.,'.,'.','.,'.','.','.',.','.,'.'.'.,.,.,

"Why am I red?" asked Neil, looking to his hands which looked to be a few shades redder than he recalled, almost like they did when he did extensive exercises and could feel his heart beat in his finger tips. But Neil couldn't feel a heartbeat anywhere. His voice was coarse and rough, his throat still shifting and changing as it tried to find a stable form.

"Your body is now made of light that also has a mass, that light is projected from your gem which filters the colour. Your gem is red, you will be slightly red."

"Is it permanent?" Neil asked, still a little hoarse.

"It can be worked out, but it takes practice and focus. It's harder when you aren't used to having multiple colours so for one that was multicoloured your entire life, it won't be very difficult."

"Oh, good... Wait, how are we supposed to explain this to the squad? Knowing them they have already gone out on the town and killed enough brain cells to account for my loss of life."

"Good thing there are no alcoholic drinks available in town." Garnet replied, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall of the doorway, giving off a very casual feel. She didn't carry on talking and just left a slightly uncomfortable silence to fester between them.

Then Neil heard a voice inside of him but it wasn't his own voice, it was the voice of Angela.

 _Colours? What a wonderful and simplistic way of describing the abundance of light wavelengths easily accessed on this planet... Did you want help in being closer to your original colours? I could filter out some of the excess 'red' wavelengths and make you more like you where... Would you like that?_

 _Yes,_ Neil thought in reply, _Thank you Angela, it's good to know you aren't gone just yet, you had me a little worried that I wouldn't be able to hear your voice again._

With a few moments passed, he began to glow white in a fashion similarly to how he did when he first formed, only this time no shapes changed. The colours of pink skin, brown hair, even though it was longer than before, although still relatively short and even had some red highlights.

 _Highlights? Really? I didn't ask for anything like that... Why?_

 _I thought it would look nice, I may have only just gained a sense of perception but that doesn't mean I can't have a sense of aesthetics... It looks good._

His uniform retained a little red hue, although it was fairly unnoticeable in lighting of the barn.

The white light faded and he looked to see his body looked, more-or-less the same way it did before the incident, minus the new hair and lack of a helmet.

"That was quick." Garnet commented, a small smile on her otherwise stoic face.

Neil looked at himself, patting his 'clothes' and checking to see how he felt in this new form. "Can I get a mirror or something?" He asked, hoping to get a better look at his face, silently praying for his face to be the same way it was before, it would at the least make it a little less awkward when the confrontation of him and the squad came.

She turned him to a mirror that was situated near a window, letting a fair amount of light in that greatly contrasted against the bright and sunny outdoors. He felt the light shine on his face, he could feel his clothes and skin warm up slightly from the intensity of the solar rays.

Looking into the mirror, he had to agree with Angela, the highlights did add a certain flair of personality to his otherwise standard issue haircut, although what was truly strange was that his usually blue irises where not blue anymore, rather they where now a selection of reds, banding from bright to dark along the surface of his eyes. He didn't have any pupils, which made the iris situation a little weirder still.

 _I always saw that the other gems had no pupils but I guess it'll get some getting used to, seeing it on my face and all..._

 _You're welcome by the way... It takes a lot of effort to maintain all of those details for a first form and organic instructions are hard to read for gem projections..._

 _Well thank you for the effort... I guess... I guess I'll just have to work with the iris situation..._

 _Is it really such a problem? I think it's kind of traditional..._

Neil pulled himself away from the mirror to rejoin Garnet, to follow what she had planned for him.

He walked into the middle area of the barn to meet her, still leaning against the door, holding it shut.

"So, what's this about training to be a gem? It can't be much harder than being a soldier can it?" Neil teased.

"We'll see about that." Garnet replied, her tone suggesting she had accepted a challenge of sorts from the gem before her.

Neil didn't know how to feel about what he could have just got himself into.

"So, what exactly can a gem do that a normal human can't?" Neil asked, genuinely interested in learning the factors that will be defining his existence for the rest of his life, however long or short it may be.

"well, you can a lot of things as a gem. For one you won't need sleep, food, water or even air..." Then Garnet's pace of speech picked up, "There's also the strength, speed, endurance, shape shifting, summoning a weapon, fusion and poofing... What would you like to cover first?" Garnet asked, almost too casually.

Neil knew what the first few things where but as the list went on, he began to wonder just what sort of mess he was in. Shape shifting was the point at which he figured things would only get stranger. He figured summoning a weapon was at the least similar to what Pearl did when she made a spear appear from nothing.

"What is fusion and poofing?" Neil asked, feeling sure enough to guess at what the other things meant.

"Fusion is where two or more gems unite into a singular form, melding their minds and bodies together and making them into more than the sum of their parts. Poofing is what happens to a gem if they sustain too much damage to their physical form. They become unstable and they retreat back into their gemstones to regenerate more effectively."

"Right, how long does it take to regenerate after being poofed?" Neil asked, feeling like it may be something relevant.

"Depends, Amethyst rushes her regeneration process and while it means she can take a matter of seconds, it isn't always stable and she may relapse, retreating back into the gem. Pearl takes her time, normally taking a few weeks before she returns." She considered Neil's case and reached the verdict that she really could not tell if he could be faster or if he could even reform like a normal gem. She chose not to speak.

He asked what sort of practice it would take to master such abilities, "So, do I just keep on trying? Do the powers reveal themselves to me when it's convenient for them? What do I do to kick start them?"

"You can't, just keep on living and doing things and eventually, you should have your abilities known to you within a decade."

"A decade? No big deal then?" He replied sarcastically.

"Not considering your lifespan is as long as you protect your gem from shattering. Which is like having your consciousness divided and split into fragments, which will never know what it is to be whole again... Try to protect your gem as best as you can because it is the only part of you that truly is you."

He looked down in thought.

 _Just keep on living, preferably finish this mission and eventually I will control these new abilities..._

 _Only when I trust you to do it right._

 _So you are saying I can do these things now but you won't let me until you think I can handle it?_

 _Pretty much..._

Her voice seemed to giggle in laughter, finding humour in the fact that a soldier that has lived a life waits on the whims of a young, childlike consciousness.

His face contorted into a smirk and he made to ask Garnet for the ultimate question that plagued his mind from the moment he came back.

"What do we do about the others, how do we tell them I am alive? And a gem? It's going to be hard to explain something like this to captain Perrick..." His face turned to one of thought and worry, hoping that the malicious image of government intervention and secrecy of the possible processes were but tall stories told to scare people straight.

Garnet replied with a rather simple action, shrugging her shoulders. It seemed she either knew exactly what to do or had absolutely no idea. The notion of a leader that either knows everything with certainty or knows nothing would have been amusing, if it wasn't quite so worrying at the same time.

"Thanks..." He said, feeling thankful for the briefing on the new life he would be living, although sarcasm managed to worm its way into his answer, largely because of her limited helpfulness. "Well, how's the drill and warp situation going? How far have we gone?"

"Take a look for yourself," She said, opening the grand barn doors to reveal the gem drill, a green pod situated above a massive black drill head with three long, spindly legs protruding from the midsection that suspended the device in the air, pointing to the ground. It glistened in the late morning sun, the green hull and black plates shining in the light with a polished finish. "So, the others are either on the moon, getting coordinates for the drill or they are in the town, just minding their own business?" Neil asked, looking for confirmation.

"Correct." Garnet replied.

"And the cluster drill is finished, bar the coordinates of course." Neil said, speaking as though it was a question.

"Yep."

"So, who do you think will be back first? If they split up then there's a fair chance that they will be back at different times, right?"

"Well, it depends on whether they take the van or not." Garnet replied, sounding mildly unsure for the first time since Neil's first encounter with the gem.

"The van?" Neil asked, confused.

At this moment the question was answered by a look down the hill toward the town, where Neil heard, and promptly saw the van in question. It was brightly coloured, with many shades and patterns mashing around the hull. Neil could barely see the occupants of the vehicle that proudly read the words 'Mr Universe' in mock-eighties writing on the side, to be greeted with the image of Kyle, wildly grinning next to an older man, who must've been in his 50's driving.

"That van." Garnet replied, Neil looked at her with a face that spoke volumes of confusion, this time directed at Garnet, not the absence of a van.

"I'll explain later." She said as the van rolled into the yard where the two gems and drill waited.

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Kyle was struggling to keep the fits of laughter down from hearing Greg's musical history, in compact disk form, blasting from the speakers. Amethyst and Sam where sat (or rather crouched) in the rear part of the van, where a mass of clothes, musical equipment and a mattress resided. Sam laughed with the music, although he enjoyed the tune more than Kyle, who mostly laughed at the somewhat cheesy nature of the tunes. Amethyst simply laughed at the reactions of the soldiers to the tunes, finding the real amusement in the people around her.

"Who's that?" Greg asked, pointing to the figure stood by Garnet, hoping to distract the passengers.

The passengers looked to Garnet standing by someone, someone that shouldn't have been there.

"What the fuck?" Sam and Kyle simultaneously said, one speaking with fear and the other speaking in joy, both heavily laced with confusion.

"What?" Amethyst added, sounding almost afraid as her face dropped.

Greg had no idea what was happening but felt a little left out when it occurred to him that he was the only one that didn't have idea who the stranger was. He parked the van and the occupants piled out, eager to confirm their own theories.

Kyle ran right for the one he thought was Neil as Sam took cover behind one of the doors of Greg's van, taking his 44. Magnum out of it's holster and aiming for the stranger. Amethyst joined Sam behind the door, hoping to be in on whatever plan he had going.

Neil stood, a little shocked at the sudden arrival and having had no time to plan an explanation, a sheepish "Hi." Being all he could squeeze out of himself as Kyle neared.

"Wait a sec." Kyle whispered to himself, slowing his pace as drew to a stop a few feet away from Neil. His face contorted in realisation as he saw the reality of the man before him.

Sam and Amethyst where the only ones that remembered Neil's passing and his funeral that same morning and had payed attention to the alarm bells in their heads, sounds that Kyle was only just beginning to listen to.

Kyle pulled his sidearm and held it to Neil's face, the barrel being just a few inches from his forehead.

"Move and I'll shoot." Kyle said, a little more menacing than Neil was accustomed to.

"Yep okay, I get that you may be a little confused right now." Neil replied, sounding a little more sheepish than he would've liked.

"YOU'RE DEAD!" Kyle shouted, near hysterical with a manic look in his eye.

"Yeah, I remember... Hey Garnet, can you help me with this? Please?" Neil hoped for explanation from the giant gem, at least someone that the potentially lethal man might believe and if not the nutter with a gun, at least the gems might be able to help him.

"I would, but this is your ground. Give them the truth and all will be fine." She said as she gazed down at him, facing the human with a gun to his face.

Neil gulped and felt it go nowhere, not having a digestive system was never going to be something he could just get used to.

"I thought I was dead too, but it looks like... Like I'm a... A.. Gem. Now..." The words didn't want to leave his throat, he hoped the next sentence would flow more smoothly than the last one.

"Garnet thinks my mind, or spirit or whatever wormed it's way into the gem that killed me and incubated inside until the gem formed and let me take control. Shouldn't you be glad I'm back?" Neil said, feeling a little more confident now the hardest part of the confession had come out.

"I would be glad, if it wasn't for the... The eyes... They are kinda' freaking me out... Don't get me wrong man, it's great if it really is you that's back but.. How do I know this is you? How are we supposed to move on from this?" Kyle responded, letting his armed arm fall to his side.

Sam and Amethyst moved to join Kyle's side and now they stood on either of his sides, revolver and whip drawn and held to meet Neil's gaze.

"That is a little freaky." Sam commented, noticing the hues across Neil's form.

"Yeah, I think it's kind of a gem thing, not really something I can just stop and fix. I tried."

Amethyst decided it was her time to be of some use and tried to make herself useful. "If you're a gem now, that means you can do gem stuff... What sort of stuff can you do?" Amethyst felt a little like she could have said anything else and would have been more helpful but what she had said was said.

"Well, I managed to tone down the red from my.. Uhh, form? That's about it though, I only formed like 10 minutes ago so don't expect too much of me okay?"

"Can you stretch? Like this?" Amethyst asked, he arms extending into long, flailing limbs that waved and flapped around like eels.

Sam and Kyle jumped slightly at the motion, and even more so at the mischievous face she pulled in the motion. Neil tried to mimic the motion.

 _Okay, I need some cooperation here... Are you gonna let me do this or are you going to make this awkward?_

 _..._

 _I'll take that as a 'sure, no problem'..._

He closed his eyes and put his arms out to his sides and began to move them, wiggling and almost trying to feel a flow of sorts as he went through the motion.

After a few seconds of the motion, mixed with a few strange noises that seemed to come from his mouth, he cracked an eye open to find that nothing had changed and he was putting a very strange movement on, that simply amused the marines and gem. The van driver cracked a smile and smirked at the man from a distance.

"Really, that's exactly what I was expecting to happen." Neil said, feeling a little defeated.

"Yep, it's Neil alright." Kyle said, finally putting his gun away, followed by the same motion from Sam and a similar one from Amethyst.

"Welcome back." Sam added, stepping forward and giving a rather formal salute before he grabbed him and tugged him in for a group hug of sorts between the squaddies. Moving Neil proved very difficult but that just lead to the hug forming around him instead of him falling into the group for the embrace. Each member subconsciously felt their fingers roll over the surface of his gem, acknowledging it's presence and it's importance. This was Neil now.

They all knew it was the same guy that joined them on the mission that was back with them, they couldn't wait to tell Franklin and get him back in the game. He was the sort to feel a real pain and sorrow at the loss of his friends and he played off of the strengths they gave him, this was going to be massive for him.

 _Thanks a bunch Angela..._

 _You're welcome... It worked didn't it?_

 _That was your idea of a plan?_

 _I'll say it again, it worked didn't it?_

 _I guess so... But please don't play that card with everyone... It won't always help..._

"Well then." Sam said, taking command of the disorganised crowd, "Can't be much longer until the other get back, so I'd say its about time for lunch.

A cheer of acceptance from the crowd and they all set about the toughest discussion of the evening... What to eat?

 **A/N**

 ***Whew***

 **That was harder than it should've been...**

 **Anyway, I think that's the last of the pre-written stuff and I will be going on a long holiday to Holland on Friday so if there is no upload by then, you shouldn't expect one until early September... Sorry...**

 **This chapter is not edited... Raw uploaded... I'll take care of it within 24 hours, I know I am being an absolute tumour about this but I thought being 3 days late was bad enough... It's not like I didn't re-write the entire second half twice or anything... (That makes sense right?)**

 **Lastly, thank you all soo very much for all the support, favourites, follows and reviews, keep em' coming and thank you again... They really are the fuel for this story.**

 **Thanks  
Mein Kapatin**


	8. Chapter 8- Run Boy!

**The Barn – Day 4 – 11:02 Local Time**

The lunar mission team had returned and at first, the group was very confused, the Russian and Franklin especially. The man he thought he had wounded and was not just presumed but confirmed dead stood before him. A look of vengeance took over the red-hued soldier against the red-aligned soldier.

"You! You SOB! You did this to me! If you had simply stopped to ask questions instead of opening fire then I would still be human! Instead you shot first! Didn't your sargent ever tell you to check your targets before shooting!" shouted Neil as he advanced on the confused Russian.

There was friction between the two that Sam and Kyle had tried to prevent. They each grabbed an arm only to be dragged along by Neil as he neared the now somewhat more worried Russian, only to be stopped by Garnet standing in his way, who moved with surprising speed to stand with crossed arms.

Pearl stood, smelling the fuse of a gunpowder trail in the air and feeling a sense of impending danger for all around, especially the new stranger. As Garnet seemed to effortlessly slide into Neil's path, she inadvertently found herself in front of Steven and Alex.

Neil stood, a small part of him hoping Garnet would step aside and let him have his revenge on the man foolish enough to come back. She wouldn't budge and soon Steven and Alex where encouraged to take a walk to the cliffs by Amethyst and Pearl, leaving the squad alone with the most ominous and stoic of the Crystal Gems.

After a long silence, Garnet finally spoke, and not in a caring tone, but a commanding one. "Neil, forget trying to kill him, we'll need him. Sit down and think about what you plan on doing next time you meet Alex very carefully or you may find yourself in a far worse place than this."

Neil stared down the abyss that the tall gem's visor revealed and despite all his determination, he couldn't stay at it for long.

"Fine." He muttered before he stormed off to a nearby pickup truck, where he sat and, at first, eyeballed Garnet, who simply eyeballed back with twice the intensity.

In time, Neil grew calmer and more distracted by the environment and before he knew it, he was in a strange place.

" _That could've gone worse…"_ Neil thought to himself with heavy sarcasm.

" _You're welcome you know."_ replied Angela.

" _I don't know whether I should thank you or curse you for that little stunt…"_ _thought Neil back._

" _You know I would never endanger you or myself… Uh,_ _ourselves_ _? Whatever, I was just having some fun."_ countered the disembodied voice of Angela.

" _I get it, you just want to enjoy yourself from your backseat view of life but I need you to be sensible here okay? I know there is probably nothing keeping us from wading out the end of the world but that would involve the loss of my friends… My family, and that is something I am not willing settle on."_ thought Neil in a stern internal voice.

Outside Neil's head, Kyle and Peridot just stared at Neil as he stared back at them silently as if off in his own little world. "Do you think we should help him?" Asked Kyle. "Nah, let him be for a bit, see if he snaps out of it, he did just transform into a Gem after all." replied Peridot, "Something like this has never happened before, for someone that has no experience in gems, it's a pretty big shift."

Back inside Neil's head the conversation with Angela reached its conclusion.

" _Okay… I'm sorry…"_ thought Angela back at Neil, remorse evident in her tone.

The normally happy voice in his head seemed almost depressed at the notion of losing close ones, even if they had yet to meet her, and surely enough they would eventually, but until then, her only job was to keep Neil alive and to keep the family alive.

It was the hard truth she needed.

The silence grew until it consumed the mental space and Neil was snapped back to the reality around him. He knew he would have to find a way of doing that without looking like he just blanks out.

Franklin was briefly met by the other two human soldiers, who attempted to reassure him on the whole situation. Given some time he tried to understand but it was hard for him. Having someone he had declared dead walking around in front of him was strange enough but it was the notion that it wasn't just Neil on the inside that truly unsettled him.

Neil hadn't told any of the marines about Angela, the last thing he wanted is for the men he needed on his side to question whose side he is on. So when Franklin finally mustered the courage to ask the difficult question to the new gem, old friend, Neil needed to play his hand right or he wasn't going home when this was all over.

Franklin wanted to believe everything was fine but that strange part of his mind that told him to dig and search, to check and to investigate the strange things. It was a mindset that had saved his life and the lives of his squad countless times before but he had never felt it towards a fellow squad mate before.

He waved at Neil.

He didn't notice.

He walked up to Neil and waved at his face. This appeared to be enough to shake him from his little world as Neil blinked a few times and focused his eyes onto his commanding officer.

"Oh, hey boss, what's up?" Neil said, almost sounding a little nervous at the sudden invasion of his mental spotlight.

"We need to talk."

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"Who are you?" Franklin asked with an asserting tone as he interrogated his squadmate from the seclusion of the backside of the barn, everyone else being somewhere else doing something else.

"Uh, I'm Neil?" He replied, unsure of the question and the implications. Neil knew something might happen with Franklin although he was expecting Sam to also be there as he was the most perceptive of the team.

"Well ' _Neil'_ I have a few questions for you." continued Franklin, speaking with a spite Neil was not accustomed to receiving.

"Sure thing boss, I mean fire away." Neil replied, trying a happy confidence that Angela seemed to radiate most of the time. It wasn't something far off from what he already did when he was contented with the world but this felt a little desperate, if not, forced.

"Tell me why I can trust you. Give me a good reason not to leave you behind here when this is all over." Franklin would have tried grabbing Neil by the shirt to emphasize effect but he already knew it would give him the wrong image if this really was the Neil he knew from before and even so, he was a gem now, gems are not easy to move, especially if you are a simple human.

Neil tumbled the words through his mind and Angela thought to find the answers she wanted as Neil sought the answers he needed.

" _How can I do that? There's my word and Garnet's word but if you avoid trusting her and the Crystal Gems then that leaves just the guys… And while I would trust my life to them in a gunfight… I don't know about this…_ _Can I really trust the Gems with our version of Earth?"_

" _You could tell him the truth, about me and you sharing a head together-_ " _suggested Angela helpfully._

" _No. This sort of thing happens back home and they call it schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder or something… It's not a good thing…_ " _thought Neil in reply._

" _Are you saying I am a bad thing?"_ _asked Angela in a worried voice._

" _No, you are a good thing but a voice in my head that talks to me and interacts with me could be mistaken for a disease and if he gets that idea, then we could consider our chances of going home to rest at roughly zero._ " replied Neil as firmly as he could, he needed this Gem-mind on his side if he was ever to gain control of his powers and make it through this.

" _What would happen if we went home? What would happen to us then?_ " _asked Angela softly._

" _I guess we would live on as though this was normal… The big difference between this and schizophrenia is that this is legitimate, you are another actual, independent entity in my head… My god, that sounds exactly like what a schizophrenic would say…"_ thought Neil ironically.

The mental discussion was over, they could not tell him about this. It had to stay private.

"Well? How can I trust you?" Franklin pleaded, his intimidation seeming to have failed as he faced Neil who presented little emotion as an internal debate took place in his head.

"I can't Frank... I really can't... I can only give you my word that this is me talking to you, and this is me wanting to save our world. Wanting to go home." He said, hoping that this would be enough as he didn't have any more ammunition for this topic.

"That's really all I can get out of you isn't it? I want to bring you home with us but I don't know if I can. How am I going to explain this to your family? To our CO? 'Sorry about Neil, he died and came back to life as an alien the next day?' It doesn't inspire confidence." pleaded Franklin as his desperation to be able to trust and work with Neil again made itself apparent.

"You don't have to worry about that, let me worry about it. For now just be happy you have a gem on YOUR team, from what I hear I get some pretty good stuff out of it." Neil said, trying to fix the broken man standing before him with slumped shoulders and a defeated expression that Neil was yet to see on the otherwise hardened, stoic face.

"Are you okay, Frank?" Neil asked, holding the man in question by the shoulders as he shook gently enough to snap him out of his own thoughts.

"I don't know. Are you? I mean you died! That must have been kind of traumatic at least." He said, not sure if he was feeling sorry for himself or for the ex-human before him.

Neil locked his eyes with the squad leader and made a gaze that peered into the soldier's soul as he spoke. "Listen to the words that pour from my mouth. I. Am. Fine. Repeat those to me."

"I. Am. Fine."

"And again."

"I. Am. Fine."

"Again." Neil said, more gusto than before, he spoke more loudly and with a more commanding tone.

"I am fine." Franklin said feeling a minor improvement, enough to feel less of a burden on his mind.

"Come on, tell me are you wounded? Have you been shot?" Neil said a little loudly as he tried to provoke a real reaction from the soldier.

"No, I AM FINE!" Franklin proudly shouted, gaining the attention of Kyle and Peridot, who happened to be passing by when he broke the private air he worked to obtain.

They both looked at the two marines, one of whom had his arms held up in the air in a triumphant style. The two technicians looked at the strange display for a few seconds before the gem walked on her route, speaking back to the individuals having their strange display, "I don't know what you guys do in your spare time but I don't think I want to know."

Kyle was left standing with his rocket launcher in his arms and a confused look on his face. He then spoke after a second of quiet, tense eyeballing. "I'm gonna show Steven how to use the rocket launcher, wanna watch?"

Neither Neil nor Franklin thought this was a good idea, as ideas swirled in their heads about how they could possibly take the weapon away from Kyle, hopefully disarming him for everyone's safety. But that would require his cooperation or his physical restraint… None of which come freely from the Texan.

"Sure." Neil said, "At least if something goes wrong, I can do something about it."

At this point Franklin realised his hands were still suspended in the air and he decided that his moment of triumph and self-realisation was over. He processed Kyle's words and decided to at least try to shoot Kyle's idea down before he actually had the chance to do any damage… This was certainly going to be an eventful day.

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Franklin managed to at least grab and stand in the way of Kyle, shouting promises of reprimanding that Kyle shrugged off as acceptable costs for this level of entertainment.

Upon reaching the spot where he had last seen Steven, however, they were all (some more so than others) disappointed to see he was fast asleep on a rug overlooking the cliffs and ocean.

He occasionally stirred and moaned in his sleep but he seemed ultimately peaceful… Until he woke up.

"AH!" He shouted as he rose from his position on the carpet.

"What's wrong little man? Had a bad dream?" Franklin asked with a face of genuine care, although he also hoped that if he said yes, it might put Kyle off destroying the innocence that flooded the child's heart.

Steven rubbed the back of his head as he adjusted to the scene around him. "Uh… No, it's nothing really… What are you guys doing over here anyway?"

Neil decided to spearhead the explanation. "Kyle wanted to show you how to use his rocket launcher because he wants to awaken your inner sociopath."

Kyle put the rocket launcher down and began to look a little bashful as the boy's eyes fell onto him, not sure if he should appease the ill man or if he should at least try to maintain some innocence, if not for his sake, for his father's sake.

"Oh. Well, I guess we could do that but shouldn't we get to drilling or something? I mean it's finished and all. Why haven't we begun drilling yet?" Steven asked, trying to change the subject as he hoped he could get the idea of his inner sociopath coming out to fade from the minds of those around him.

"That's a good point, why haven't we begun drilling yet?" asked Franklin, turning to the soldiers for an answer.

Kyle spoke, shrugging off the guilty feeling in exchange for providing information. "Well, Peridot has the coordinates and Pearl said she needed a few moments to upload the data so we should be ready pretty soon. She said she needed to sort something a bit more… Personal before she could get to it. Then she just ran off to the back of the barn with some kind of crystal in her hands."

Steven's sleep expression shifted to one of shock. He remembered the strange object she recovered from the lunar control panel and how she seemed surprisingly secretive of it. He was going to ask her about it but he was overwhelmed by a wave of tiredness upon his return to the Earth's gravity and before he knew it, he was asleep.

"I think we should check on Peridot." he said, his face proudly and clearly displaying a sense of concern, although what the concern was for, for Peridot herself or the object she scavenged was not obvious.

The change of his character was sufficient enough to catch the attention of the soldiers and sell them on following the boy as he walked off to the barn in search of the alien technician.

Upon reaching the barn, conversation was heard between peridot and Sam, who had been last seen walking off with Garnet. Sam's voice carried a wave of scrutiny, he was interrogating her with an intent glare and a stern voice as she struggled to keep her composure.

"What is it?" he asked, his focus tightly held on her every twitch and squirm.

"I don't know what you're talking about." she lied, holding the object behind her back.

"You can't lie to me, there are many people that could've seen you but of all the dangerous people you can lie to, I am by far the worst. Now what is it?"

She squirmed slightly and her face contorted as she weighed her options before attempting one last lie.

"I really have-" She was cut off by Sam's sudden movements, causing her to change her course of speech. "IT'S A COMMUNICATOR!" She shouted.

"That communicates with who?" Sam asked. He payed attention to the fact that Peridot was not of the same allegiance as the Crystal gems but he was never told why. He preferred to stay quiet, let people forget he was there and to then absorb all the information that he could from the people oblivious to his presence.

Peridot took a deep intake of air and the silent observers waited with baited breath. "It's a Diamond line communicator. It will allow me to communicate with my Diamond, who I am sure will sort this all out-" Sam held a hand up in the air, signaling to the small gem to stop talking.

"I get that you want to do a good thing but why the secrecy?"

"The Crystal Clods don't follow the creed of the Diamonds, they rebelled against them thousands of years ago, which was a very stupid move. They won't let me talk to my Diamond, who, might I add, is totally and completely flawless. She is a totally perfect being who I completely believe can easily solve our problem much more effectively than our drill. I mean come on, have you seen how hurried it has been? It looks like it could barely get past the first few kilometers, yet alone past the upper mantle, which we'll need to pass through." She said in a very condescending manner. She seemed to forget she was being interrogated at the thought of her leader.

"And why do you think they rebelled? It looks like they won the war over 'your Diamond' so she can't be totally flawless." Sam argued.

"How do you know that wasn't a part of her plan?" Peridot counter-argued.

Sam was about to return the argument but he caught himself. He knew this was just like convincing a religious fanatic their god wasn't real, they would follow a circular logic until you gave up and left. He glared at her for a couple of seconds before pointing behind her and saying, "Oh shit, is that her?!"

"Wha? Where?!" Peridot shouted as she began to look around sporadically for the supposed monarch before Sam quickly snatched the device from her unattended grip. Before Peridot knew what he had done, he was already running for the barn door.

He leaned up against it and forced it closed as the small alien technician struggled and wiggled against the grand wooden shape in a fruitless effort to open it. After a few seconds of Peridot's struggles, Sam noticed the other members of his squad and Steven standing before him.

"Oh, hi guys… How long have you been here?" He asked, using a tone of voice that felt somewhat out of place, almost too casual for what he truly felt was appropriate.

"We heard everything, good work on getting the information but it's a shame to know the drill still isn't ready." Said Franklin.

"Yeah, I didn't die just to have the whole project fail did I?" Added Neil, trying to make light of the situation.

An awkward silence filled the air as they realised that fact that Peridot had stopped trying to break open the door. Then the sound of mechanical action from within the barn filled the group with a sense of dread. Sam mentally cursed himself for not seeing something like this coming as the side of the barn blasted open. A near deafening crack of noise followed by the sound of debris falling around them and a thick plume of smoke rose from the side. As the ringing in the ears of the soldiers began to die out, they were left with the incredibly annoying sound of Peridot's signature cackling laugh that reeked of maniacal power.

"NYEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE! NOTHING CAN STOP ME, NOT EVEN YOUR PUNY CARBON-BASED CUBOIDAL PRISON!" She screeched as she threw pieces of debris all around before attempting to steal the communicator back from the marine thief.

"RETURN WHAT IS MINE YOU DIRT BOMB!" Peridot called to Sam.

"Permission to shoot this SOB?" Asked Kyle as he readied the rocket launcher and once again pointed it toward the green gem. "Negative," Franklin said, "She still has the Cluster coordinates on her gem and we destroyed the control surface up there, she needs to be kept alive."

Kyle felt a little divided about the idea of using the launcher, on one hand he needed the gem and the robot out of commission but he had grown closer to the sociopathic technician. They shared a certain mindset that allowed them to find humour in all the same tragedies and they both had a mutual respect for each other that they had for no other sentient being.

He wanted to see an epic explosion but he didn't want to lose his friend. The denial of his request put his mind to rest, even if it meant he had no means of protecting himself from the green gremlin.

The squad scrambled and ran in multiple directions, they knew she was going to follow whoever had the communicator, so they decided to practice their favourite pass time, normally to the dismay of Sam.

Sam threw the prism through the air toward the squad leader, who caught it and continued running as he shouted orders to the young half-gem that watched partly in terror and partly in amusement. "Steven! Get the Gems over here ASAP. That's an order, boy!"

Steven ran off for the hillside where the gems and Alex watched the sea from the edge of the cliff, seemingly unaware of the carnage that was taking place at the barn.

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 **A/N**

 **Hey... Sorry it's been so long...**

 **I do realise it's been several months since I have so much as opened the word document to work on it but don't worry, I forgot I wrote as much as I did...**

 **Yep, that's right, I've got another chapter or two already written and ready to upload.**

 **But you know what?**

 **I'm going to drip feed you... Don't question it, it's better this way.**

 **Well, I hope to get back to this again soon but that's hope, we'll see how well that holds up...**

 **Special thanks to pinheadh78, we've been working together on stuff over the last few months and if there's anyone I have to recommend by name, it's him. His story "Pearl In WWII" is fantastically written and brilliantly well researched. I'm happy to say I had some involvement in it and if you're the one that hasn't already followed his story, get over there! What are you doing here?!**

 **Mein_Kapatin out.**


	9. Chapter 9- Mister Alex

**The Cliffs - Present time**

Alex stuck by Pearl, as she was his only means of communication with the people around him. He learned more about the gems, their world relative to his own and what the plan was.

He would've been a little more against the idea of destroying the entire facility and killing all of the people that he knew worked there but he never liked it there. They treated him with a contempt that even his captors didn't show. He wanted to believe that he could be safe from the dangers of the base's internal security, he had to weigh his options. He could work with them until they got back to the facility and then he could betray them. He could get promoted and gain the respect of his superiors. Or maybe they won't be able to trust him and they could put him in the same pile as the Americans. If he works with the Americans, he could seek asylum in the United States but they still need a way out of the facility.

He was stuck in the middle of a very conflicting situation.

Or… Or he could stay… The sight of the scene before him was nice and comforting and from what he had been told, this was a very functional world without war or political friction. But that would involve leaving his family behind, his mother, his sisters.

But they could have already been sent the letter claiming his death.

"ну дерьмо…" He held his head in his hands as he tossed the ideas around in his head. This wasn't just a fork in the road, this was going to determine everything about his life from this point onward.

Then Steven came trudging along as he gasped loudly for air, incomprehensibly mumbling something that sounded generically important and stressful considering his facial expression.

While Alex couldn't understand a word he said, the change in demeanor that the Crystal Gems gave was enough to grasp his attention and to bring him off of his feet. They sprinted away with a surprising speed, leaving him in a literal dust trail with the small, chubby boy that still struggled to get enough air.

"Stevfen." He pronounced with a little effort. The boy looked up to the soldier. "Huh? You know my name?"

The man didn't respond but he did gesture for the boy to begin the run back to the battleground with him. He liked the quiet air and the cool breeze but as far as he knew, it could be good to break away from his mental cage with a little distraction.

He began to walk on after the young demi-gem, still waddling along in an attempt to catch up to his comrades.

 _Need to say something sometime…_

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It wasn't going to last much longer.

Peridot was catching up on their game as she realised exactly what the soldiers were doing.

They were buying time.

Peridot knew she wouldn't have long before the Crystal Clods returned to the barn and then it would be all over. They would never trust her again, she would lose all of the progress she'd made with her new friends like Steven and Amethyst. _They don't know what they're doing, if they won't let me help them we'll never stop the cluster._

Peridot had to do something about the game they were playing with her, she had to break the stalemate.

She cornered Sam, grabbing him with one of the mechanical arms and holding him in the air by the foot. His face was deadpan, he expected this to happen sooner than later and to notice that his foot had not been broken by the bulky mechanical claw only left him in pleasant surprise.

 _Process of elimination… Remove all of the false answers and you are left with the truth... Or just the communicator…_

She began to converge on Franklin, who now held the communicator. He began to look to his two remaining allies, weighing his options on who should take the next catch.

He threw the communicator like a quarterback would throw an American football and Kyle began to run alongside it in a bid to meet it at its landing site. Peridot ceased in following the device, instead opting to pick up Franklin before cramming him into an uncomfortably close contact with Sam as they both dangled by their feet from her right claw.

She began to close in on Kyle, who saw the impending danger of her change in strategy and so, he began to consider a new plan. _Maybe I can run it away? Steven can't be far off with our backup by now, can he? Nah, she'll outrun me in a straight line, no problem. There's still me and Neil, we've got this for now…_

Lost in thought, Kyle failed to realise just how close the mechanical terror was.

Kyle jumped in shock before abruptly lobbing the communicator into the air with the hope that Neil would find it before the ground did, or worse, Peridot.

Peridot jumped in her massive machine in a bid to intercept the device she needed. It sailed through the air, missing her thick crushing claws as it landed in the grip of the new gem. _I need to end this now!_ Thought Peridot.

Neil stood still for a moment, noticing that he was the last of his squad standing. _Funny how this tiny little thing is causing so much trouble..._ He thought before snapping back to reality, where he saw a massive green machine falling right towards him.

 _Oh, right…_

He began to move, as fast as he could carry himself. He wasn't going to wait to see where he was going, there wasn't any time, the bolted behemoth was upon him.

Then he fumbled.

Neil dropped the communicator on the ground but when he realised it, he was too late. He turned to face the green technician to see she had stopped chasing. She was facing him and he was facing her with the communicator lying between them.

Despite her machine providing an immense speed and enough bulk to shove the barn aside, she stood waiting for Neil to make a move.

"I'm trying to help you." She said over the din of her machine. "If I can get my Diamond to just see things from our perspective, I know she'll be able to fix this whole situation much faster than we could on our own."

"But we already know that's not going to work." Interrupted Franklin, still dangling uncomfortably close to Sam and Kyle. "Garnet warned me something like this could happen." he said, mostly to himself.

"Neil," He called over the ambient noise, "Do not give her the device under any circumstances. Protect it with your life."

Franklin felt a little bad about using those words in particular on the man that had already done such a thing that same week but the message was clear.

"Understood." Neil replied with a serious tone that he didn't often use. He dashed for the object as Peridot stood. He grabbed the object only to look up at the machine, still standing stationary as the pilot gazed down to the ex-human. After two seconds of continued eye contact, she spoke with a commanding, threatening tone, despite her nasal voice.

"Do not test me."

Neil took the challenge and Peridot released her prisoners, dropping them into a heap on the thick grass as she dashed for the man-gem with a furious rocket-propelled charge. The air seemed to get hotter and the light seemed to shift to red as things suddenly got tense.

She hit him, head on with her five-ton machine which would have eviscerated a human but that didn't happen. Something very different happened instead.

Peridot hit a solid object that refused to budge. As she reached her sudden stop, she continued to turn the throttle on her machine, scorching the earth behind her and ringing the ears of all close enough.

The humans present made a hasty escape to gain some distance on the head-splitting noise. They quickly climbed a small hill to look back onto the battleground to see Peridot wasn't moving, or at least not very much.

Neil was holding her back, somehow. When the jets of flame finally died down and Peridot's machine was finally nearing the end of it's burn, Neil still stood there, only a few feet away from where he stood at the start.

"That wasn't supposed to happen." Commented Peridot over the considerably quieter space.

Neil stood, feeling a little strange. He didn't speak but he looked down at himself, patting his body so as to check that what he felt would match what he saw. After a sigh of relief, he opened his mouth only to get sucker-punched by Peridot's machine.

The blow came without warning, Neil couldn't compensate and was sent flying back towards the barn where he struck the wall before falling to the ground. He struggled to get up until a second of awkward moving later, he disappeared in a cloud of smoke that quickly dissipated, leaving his gemstone to drop onto the dirt.

"Oh shit." Commented Kyle as the other squad members looked on at the disaster of a plan.

It was now that the backup arrived with near trademark awful timing, the sort that meant they would always show up a few seconds later than would be helpful.

"Did you see that?" Kyle asked anyone that happened to be listening to him.

Steven soon joined the crowd gathered at the hilltop as he gasped for air shortly before dropping to the ground, face first. Muffled through the earth, he replied to Kyle. "See what?"

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Alex strolled more than anything. He saw the young, chubby and enthusiastic boy run off into the hills he came from. He saw the futility of the child's attempt to catch up to the alien women that had already since disappeared over the horizon of the next hilltop, and yet a small piece of him wanted to admire the enthusiasm of 'Stevfen'.

 _This really is another world, isn't it? A different history with different countries… All populated with different people. People that are just as desperate for a happy, peaceful life as anyone back home._

Alex didn't join the Russian Army to kill or for the 'brotherhood' that he never seemed to find. He didn't join because he was conscripted or because he was desperate for money.

He joined because he wanted to do right by his Father's memory.

Alex's father had served in the military for many years but his luck faltered and ran out as he became a casualty of the First Chechen war, leaving the young and impressionable Alex with nothing but romanticised stories of his father and a lasting encouragement to follow in his footsteps, to honor his memory.

His mother still lived in the same cottage he grew up in the Altai region with his young sister, Anastasia.

 _It's not far off her 7th birthday now is it? I wonder if I can make it back home in time…_

Of course he would need to get home before he could indulge in the comforting embrace of his sibling and mother. For now, he wouldn't just have to tolerate the American soldiers but he would need to trust them. The soldiers had many reasons to kill him and very few to keep him alive, and yet they showed him no significantly cruel side since the interrogations and even so, the worst part of that was simply imagining what the worst thing they could do to him was going to be.

Suffice it to say, he was glad he still had all his skin and fingernails firmly attached to his body.

And after his 'usefulness' had expended itself and he had proven not to be an immediate threat, they just left him alone with his translator. One of a few strange locals to this strange world that was so familiar and yet, also so strange and foreign.

A very vocal side of him said to avoid this, to just get back home and to forget most of this happened. And yet, there was this strange, quiet voice residing in the back of his mind that urged him onto investigating the truths of this land.

If not for the motherland, then for himself.

And if not for himself, then for his family.

Alex neared the summit of the hill he last saw the small boy 'Steven' running away over. _Perhaps, it is time I involved myself a little more… There's no real harm in it is there?_

Again, Alex questioned his optimism. After all, he had known people to have been shot just for being in close proximity of traitors to the motherland and while it didn't happen all too often anymore, it still happened.

 _There can't be any danger in siding with the locals at the least. The tall one that calls herself 'Pearl' at least speaks my language… Somehow…_

Alex told himself not to question such fortune as to have not only gone on unharmed but to also have someone he can actually use to translate was more than a simple stroke of luck… It was incredibly fortunate.

By this time, he reached the summit of the hill that dipped down into the large bowl that worked as a yard for the barn's front end. He snapped himself from his internal monologue and brought his attention to the situation.

It looked a little unusual to say the least, even against the mish-mash of information regarding everything he had already pieced together.

There was a long trail of disturbed dirt down a gravelly road with large footprints trailing away, further down the hill. For a moment he considered picking up the pace so as to try and find the cause of such erosion only to find himself reconsidering this action; instead he turned to look for clues as to why the South side of the barn had been blown outward.

There was some smoke pouring from the side and there wasn't any sign of fire or an explosion, which lead him to believe that whatever caused this damage, must've used raw force. Considering the size of the hole and the absence of the grand green machine that he recalled lying dormant inside the barn, he had an idea on what caused such destruction.

But no idea on why it happened.

Looking towards the front of the barn he found the large red gemstone that he frequently had shoved in his face during his interrogations. The translator, Pearl had told him it was the object that killed their munitions technician, their friend, before he returned in his strange new form.

The Americans prized the stone's keeping and yet they had left it on the ground? It already had a thin layer of dust settled on it's surface although in picking it up, Alex could feel a warmth coming from it that seemed to radiate in a pulse.

He dusted the stone off and proceeded to carry it, even if he could barely hold it in one hand, it was just small enough that he could wrap his fingers around all of it's edges so as to hold it in a firm grip.

Alex was about to consider wandering into the barn for more information when he heard a loud *Boom* echo over the hills from the direction of the ruined dirt road.

A piece of him wanted to go and investigate.

Another demanded that he stay and await orders.

He knew one side had to win this argument and though it made sense to hold the fort, to bunker down the old world rules were beginning to lose their charm over him. He had to do something.

He started in a fast walk that quickly broke into a sprint as he began to see a plume of smoke rise over the crest of the shallow hill the road passed over.

Looking down into the short dip in the road's altitude, he saw the ruins of the green machine that he assumed to have caused the damage to the barn. He also saw the 'Crystal Gems' viciously attacking the already wrecked shell of the machine's main body, its limbs being scattered around or just lying limp on the ground.

The squad of marines, minus the support specialist stood by the sidelines, guns at the ready so as to put off any intentions for hostile action. As the 'Crystal Gems' continued to batter and abuse the machine's husk, he noticed the alien technician pop out from the remaining claw hand that still attached to the core of the robot.

She seemed to dash forward for something before the Crystal Gems noticed anything and, while the Americans could have made themselves useful, their positioning put the Crystal Gems in between them and their target. They did not have a clear shot.

Soon after, the small green gremlin seemed to shout in a primal noise of success, much to the dread of the Crystal Gems, who all quickly dived for cover behind the wreckage of the downed machine.

As she green creature giggled with a giddy laughter akin to that of an excited fan at a concert, minus any screaming, the chubby boy he remembered as Steven was quickly pulled behind the cover of the wreckage.

The marines lined up with the Crystal Gems and they all peaked over the crest of cover.

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"I have a clear shot." Said Sam with his rifle at the ready, the barrel protruding from the top of the cover the wreckage provided.

"Do not fire." Garnet commanded with a tone Sam found hard to disagree with. He was about to inquire as to why he shouldn't before she beat him to the line.

"She's already opened the communication channel, the best thing we can do is hope she isn't going to betray us to her."

"Her?" Asked Kyle, sounding largely as though he didn't really care but rather for the sake of his squad, he was willing to make this one gesture of interest in another's problem.

"Shh." She replied as the Diamond Line Communicator began to float up about 10 feet into the air. Then it seemed to glow a bright yellow before it expanded into a large diamond shape before expanding again upwards and downwards until a large portrait image of a Yellow Pearl wearing yellow clothes in a yellow room appeared. Magnified through the yellowish haze of the communicator the yellow Pearl looked down her nose disappointedly at the tiny Peridot that stood in it's spotlight.

"This is the Yellow Diamond control room." She said, her voice sounded condescending and nasal. Kyle already hated her just by the tone of her voice and the way she looked down to the technician he considered as mildly deranged as he was, which in his eyes made her a closer friend than most.

"Is that another Pearl?" Amethyst asked, a mild confusion in her hushed tone.

"Who is she?" asked Steven as he looked to his mother-Pearl in hopes of her being able to identify and explain the confusion he shared with Amethyst.

"Not all Pearls know each other, Steven." Pearl replied, she felt mildly annoyed that he had assumed them to be of the same class, especially as she fought to break from her bonds as a servant but she knew she couldn't hold it against her pudgy young student. She cared a little too deeply to hold anything against him.

Who authorised you to make this call?" The yellow Pearl asked, her voice only seeming to rise in annoyance.

"N-No one. But it's an emergency." Peridot replied, cowering in the light of the Pearl's invasive and uncaring tone.

Before Peridot could continue, the yellow Pearl cut her off, providing further scorning. "That's no excuse to use the Direct Diamond Communication Channel."

"I wonder what would happen if I shot at the hologram?" Asked Sam to anyone listening, he already wanted to end the incessant voice of the Pearl on the screen.

Before she could continue her disdainful talk down to the green technician, feeling very put out by the verbal abuse she received, another voice took over. This one much much deeper, still slightly nasal but nothing like the Pearl's. It exuded control and power.

"Pearl?" It asked.

"Y-yes my Diamond?" She replied, now losing all of her disdainful voice in favour of a much softer and submissive tone.

"Why is there someone on the Diamond Line?" It asked, sounding as though it had been awoken from a sleep that demanded peace and quiet. There was a casual annoyance in the voice.

"I don't know. I was just about to tell her that-"

"I'll take it from here." It said before a massive deep yellow hand filled the screen space only to reveal a tall figure that refused to directly face the receiving audience.

The Crystal gems gasped in shock, the marines responded a little differently as they simply continued to look on. The screen refused to show an accurate depiction of the figure's size but if the size of the hand versus the size of the Pearl was anything to go by, she had to be at least twenty feet tall.

"Is that?" Amethyst asked.

"Yellow-" Pearl responded.

"Diamond." Garnet finished. It's possible she knew Pearl wouldn't be able to finish her sentence but they dared to not talk about it as the conversation between the monarch of the Gem Homeworld and Peridot was about to begin.

"My Diamond. Peridot reporting in." She said, her arms moving into a salute of sorts with either hand forming half of the shape of a diamond which met in the middle of her chest.

"Which Peridot?" Asked Yellow Diamond, her voice loaded with contempt as she still refused to directly look at her conversation recipient.

"F-Facet 2F5L Cut 5XG. I'm sorry to contact you this way but all other forms of communication have been destroyed and-"

With the simple motion of moving her gargantuan hand into a 'hold' signal, she halted the Peridot's verbal spewing. Peridot immediately stopped.

"This shows you are behind schedule on your mission to-" She paused as one of the many screens behind her changed to show a depiction of the Earth.

"How is the Earth?" She continued. She turned to look at the technician, her voice was slow and less demanding than before as her personal history with the planet came to mind.

"It's full of life." Peridot said, a strange expression on her face that only read a mixture of an attempt to compose herself although a smile did not completely fail to show itself. Yellow Diamond did not care for the technician's expression as she continued.

"Organic life." She said with an obvious contempt in her voice. "And where is the Jasper I sent you with? And why aren't you calling from the ship?" She asked, it was obvious that Peridot had screwed up somewhere and while they both knew this, Yellow Diamond wasn't going to let it slide at all as she dug for information.

"Uh, the ship was destroyed." Peridot replied, her tone much less of excitement and much more of discomfort, she knew this wasn't going to end well.

"By whom?" Yellow Diamond asked. Her tone was damning for whoever was at fault and she did not even try to mask it's probable implications.

The Crystal gems gasped as they knew this was Peridot's chance to expose them to the wrath of her Diamond. The tone sent shivers down their collective spines, even Franklin who had found it easy enough to accept his fate at the hands of any terrorist but the wrath of an inter-dimensional alien deity was a little scarier in his mind.

"I-i-it was destroyed by…" They held their breaths in anxiety of what she would do. Would she shatter them? Would she have them corrupted? Would she destroy their whole planet and have them drift through space for all eternity, forever alone?

"Noone. There was… An accident… While we were landing." Peridot struggled to say. The young Steven, peaking from above the cover looked onward in shock/surprise as he mentally considered this a step in the right direction, even if it put Peridot in the line of fire.

Yellow Diamond squinted in disappointment towards the small technician. "I'll inform your manager of your incompetence." She turned her head away to begin typing away on one of the many holographic panels that surrounded her throne. "And what is the status of the Cluster?" She asked as the Yellow Pearl re-entered the frame of the image just to smirkingly stare down the Peridot.

"The Cluster will emerge shortly." She said, feeling fairly put down by the implications of a shoddy report, far more serious on the Gem Homeworld than it would be for any marine, and they could tell just based on her tone. For this, Sam began to feel bad for Peridot. He knew it was his own fault that she had to give up this secret and that made it his fault for the destroyed barn, the destroyed robot and any of the damages that he could've caused to his friends. And yet the one she looks up to with admiration and dignity flatly refuses to even consider her an independant being. It was like she had fought just to receive abuse for it.

If it was fair enough to relate her to Kyle and to consider that Kyle had little to care for his military reports, this lead the marines to only guess that it would be life-threateningly bad for the Peridot they knew.

"Good. We'll finally get some use out of that miserable planet. Thank you for your report Peridot. There will be a ship arriving shortly to take you to your next assignment." She said conclusively as she expected the channel to be closed and for the annoying need to directly communicate with the lower ranks of her army but she was held from such a movement.

"Wait." Peridot said at her first opportunity.

"I wouldn't have called just to waste your time with a report." She said. It almost sounded like she was going to challenge the authority of her leader.

"You already have." Yellow Diamond replied, spite in her voice as she began to wish this entire bit of communication would just end so she could move on with her usual routines.

"No, I mean the reason I called. The real reason is…" She took a breath, "I believe we should terminate the Cluster."

Yellow Diamond eyed her from her slanted view only to reply with even more disdain than the Pearl before. "Why?"

"The organic ecosystem creates resources unique to this world. We can't sacrifice all that potential for one geo-weapon." Peridot's confidence began to peak as she continued. "I'd like to tell you about some plans I came up with to utilize the planet without disrupting the local-"

"I've heard enough." Yellow Diamond interrupted. She began to assert her authority over the small gem. "I don't care about 'potential' and 'resources'."

"What?" Peridot said, surprised at the irrational hatred towards the Earth and it's bounty of potential. This didn't sound like the critical, objective and perfect Diamond she trusted her existence to.

"I want my Cluster and I want that planet to die. Just make that happen."

"No." Peridot said, refusing to blindly acknowledge the authority of Yellow Diamond.

The Yellow Pearl gasped in shock as Yellow Diamond turned to face the screen. "Are you questioning my authority?" She asked with a incredulous view on what was happening.

"I'm questioning your objectivity, my Diamond." Peridot quickly spurted out with another salute, sweat dripping from her forehead as her insides began to panic. She wanted to run but she knew that would only make things worse. She had to face her monarch and take whatever came her way.

"You are out of line." Yellow Diamond said as she stood to her full height, holding the communication screen in her hand as she spoke in a brooding tone down at Peridot.

"I just think-" Peridot began.

"I'm not interested in the puny thoughts of a Peridot." She said, her tone rising as anger filled her form.

"But-" Peridot stuttered.

"You have disrespected this channel and my time with your presence and you would do well to-"

"But-"

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Yellow Diamond said, as she continued her reprimanding over the small technician with a vengeance very rarely witnessed by any gem of any kind. "You have failed at every turn of this mission. Your only chance to redeem yourself is to obey this simple order: you are to leave the Cluster to grow, it will tear apart the Earth and I will take immense satisfaction of taking that hideous rock off of our star maps. IS. THAT. CLEAR?"

"I WON'T DO IT! I can tell you with certainty that there are things on this planet worth protecting." Peridot shouted as she struggled to speak out against the direct orders of her monarch, her leader, her deity.

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE EARTH?" Yellow Diamond angrily demanded as she became invested in the argument against the Peridot.

"APPARENTLY MORE THAN YOU. YOU CLOD!" Peridot shouted toward Yellow Diamond. The Diamond had never been directly insulted by a minor of her ranks before so this was a massive shift from what she expected. A face of shock filled the screen on both ends as one processed the insult and the other processed what she had said to her monarch, leader, maker and deity.

"Uhh, Peridot out." She said as she handled the communicator down and the screen shrank back into the Diamond Line Communicator. The light faded and she was left holding the device with nothing but a pair of arms filled with regret and a gut filled with dread.

 **A/N**

 **Special thanks again to pinhead78 for help in writing, planning and editing and thanks to everyone still reading this.**

 **That's all I got for now, we've got ideas for future chapters and the conclusion of the story but it all depends on how much time I can and actually do end up pouring into this website... I can't get you an ETA and I can't promise it'll even be done this year, but... Well, what do you want? I have a life too...**


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